Agent-Hero-Husband-Jack
by izzah9701
Summary: Jack has lived through much - two world wars, a battle against communism that pitted the whole world against each other, and an exceptionally rich life with a woman he loved deeply - a life he didn't think he'd have while sitting in a trench, covered in mud. Yet, here he was, and here was his story. (M for cursing and non-graphic "bedroom scenes.)
1. The War of the Pacific

_A/N: Just a short thing I couldn't get out of my head._

* * *

November, 1943

_It had started to rain a little bit within the last half hour – a steady stream of near-invisible water droplets, only to be seen when someone shone a light; not quite heavy enough to flood your boots or obscure your vision, but just patient enough to be a bit of a nuisance._

_He leaned backwards until he felt the back of his head touch the edge of the sandbag, and then softened his body and slid down an inch or two for comfort. Though his eyes were closed, he could see where the rest of his squad lay around him, mainly from the imprinted image in his mind from before he had decided to shut his eyes, but also because of the urgent, hushed conversations that flowed around him._

_This, to him, was the sound of the war, when there was a lull in the fighting and men were desperate to talk, desperate to have a human connection, to alleviate that heavy blanket of fear that had enshrouded them before. Because during the course of a battle, there was only chaos. There were only men shouting at each other, and mortars blowing up ten feet away from you, and bullets whizzing through the air. No one could see it. No one even knew where it was until they heard it half a centimeter away from their face._

_So it was after the fight, after the madness of bullets and blind shooting, that the men could look at each other and not see that insanity in their eyes – that single, focused need to live that bordered on derangement. It was after the fight that they were themselves again. It was after the fight that they were human again._

"_What do you think he's thinking about?" Perez said from somewhere in front of him, kicking his boot lightly to let Jack know that he was indeed talking about him._

_Everyone knew full well that he wasn't actually sleeping._

_Campbell, who was seated a few inches to his right, responded with, "Some girl, probably."_

"_No, not just some girl, Campbell. His girl – Clara What'shername." This was Perez again. "You know he carries around a picture of her in his helmet? Why do you think he takes such good care of that thing?"_

"_Not his helmet, boys, but his breast pocket. So she can be near his heart." At the sound of that Dutch-laced accent, Jack did open his eyes, to look at the man to his immediate right. Aart winked at him. Jack merely shook his head, even as the boys aww-ed mockingly – the man wasn't even really a part of his unit. "The more important thing is this whole business with the post," the Dutchman grumbled, and by post, he meant mail, "Where in this surprisingly wet country am I going to procure cigars?"_

_At this point, Campbell nudged him in the shoulder, inciting Jack to lean towards him, anticipating that the younger man wouldn't want to be heard. "What does procure mean?" he asked sheepishly._

_Jack smiled at him, though it was likely that the other man didn't see it. He was oddly fond of Campbell – well, he was fond of everyone in his squad, but particularly Campbell. He was just barely a man – still very much a child, really, having only turned eighteen a few weeks ago, and still affectionately known as "Runty" in the squad, being the youngest and the littlest among them. He started to move his hand to pat Campbell on the back, as he would have his own brother, but thought better against it. "To get something," he whispered back._

_When he once more settled into his previous position, he registered Aart jumping a little before he did the sound of the thunder. This elicited a quiet laugh from the rest of the group, but a particularly painful sounding snort from Chris O'Bryan, who'd likely tried to stifle his laugh too late. "Wait till you boys get to be my age," Aart chided the men jocularly. "That right there could've given me a heart attack. You won't be laughing when I turn blue and cold."_

_In response, Donny threw a pack of cigarettes at him, the offending projectile finding its aim true when it hit Aart in the side of his head. Once more, there was a resounding wave of restrained laughter. Aart, for his part, picked up the packet of cigarettes that had fallen by his lap. "All you do is joke about dying, old man. Why don't you take a smoke and tell us a story, instead – a good story!"_

_Had Jack been the one asked, he would have said no, or asked them what they wanted to hear. But Aart wasn't Jack, and what's more? Aart was European. He drew out a cigarette with his teeth, and Perez leaned forward to light it for him. As Aart leaned back and puffs of smoke emanated from within his mouth, ready to tell his story, Jack thought the man looked more like he belonged in a café in Paris rather than a trench in Fuck-knows Micronesia._

"_I was only about nine or ten the first time I fell in love," he started. "Her name was Elsie, and she was the most glorious creature I'd ever set my eyes upon. She had this gorgeous mane of jet black hair – it was the colour of the country sky at midnight, and she was three years older than me, already a woman of the world. She had no time for me. Yet, I was still determined to let her know that no man could ever devote himself to her more than I could._

_First, I started picking flowers for her – little purple and yellow and pink and white delicate ones from the fields beyond my house – wildflowers, you understand – weeds. But I thought they were beautiful. Still, they were not enough to win her affection. So I started to pick roses from my mother's garden. I started with one, and gradually worked my way up to twelve. I had nearly decimated my mother's rosebushes, and it became impossible to hide. When, eventually, mother did find out, I was given a spanking like you wouldn't believe. But I persevered, because as the great bard himself said, 'The course of true love never did run smooth.' _

_And when I found out that strawberry torte with fresh cream was her favourite dessert, I set out to learn how to make it. I slaved in the kitchen night and day with my mother, and I learned how to make almost every strawberry dessert in the book – it was quite unnatural for a man. But I was determined. And every day, I sent them to her house. Still, she wanted more…"_

_Jack found himself smiling, listening to Aart speak of his Elsie. Belatedly, he saw that the man was holding out the half-smoked cigarette to him, and obligingly, he took it. He held the tubular thing suspended between his index and middle fingers, then brought it to his lips, and took a deep drag. Instantly, his mouth was filled with the taste of stale cigarette, but he held it there for a moment anyway – a stale cigarette was better than no cigarette._

_Not for the first time, the sight of the smoke blowing out of his mouth, and the smell of the cigarette, even in the rain, brought him a measure of peace. He could see her now – his very own Elsie. The year was 1940, and Europe was properly entrenched in war with Germany, but still she'd stood languidly by the bay windows, her dark hair tumbling past her shoulders in loose curls, wearing only a white dressing gown courtesy of the hotel. He'd pretended to be asleep when she turned around to look at him._

* * *

October, 1944

"_JG?" He looked up from the sheet of paper to see Campbell, looking very small in his jacket. Outside, he could hear the sound of rain falling onto water – that ever-present, maddening _plip-plop-plip-plop_. _

_It'd been raining for hours now, and it'd started out thunderous, almost opaque with the force of them. That had been better. The sound of the rain had very nearly overpowered the noise of artillery being fired, and it'd masked that awful sound that flesh made when a bullet tore through it, and it'd masked the sound that Aart made as he lay dying on the ground. _

_He hadn't even thought to ask for Aart until hours later, when it came time for role call, when it came time for him to make sure that everyone in his platoon was accounted for. It was then that Simmons had told him, and he'd had to report the death to his company commander. There was a disheartened shake of the head from the major, and a heavy hand on a shoulder, then a nod, and finally an order to gather up Aart's things and hand them over to the chaplain._

_Jack had loathed to do it, walking into the tent and seeing the faces of the men in his charge, feeling their eyes on him as he haphazardly threw Aart's books and shoes and shirts and flute into a duffel bag, as if they were a contaminated thing that he refused to touch. Even as he'd cleaned, the emptiness of the cot screamed for attention, and the deafening silence of his men had not escaped him. But then, he supposed that was his fault. Campbell had called then, too – "JG?"_

"_What?" he asked, perhaps a little too testily, returning his attention to the paper. In just a year, the boy looked like he'd aged about ten. He supposed that was his fault, too. He put a hand up to his forehead and pushed his hair out of the way, almost throwing the pen he held down onto the piece of paper. "What is it, Campbell?"_

"_I – well – sir, I was thinking that maybe we could write a letter to Aart's mom, just to let her know how brave and good he was. I think that it'd mean a lot to her. I know that if I die, I'd like my mother to have a letter from you guys." He looked up to meet Campbell's eyes then. There was an indescribable, undirected rage inside him that was threatening to turn into outrage at the man before him. "I just think that he's spent all this time away from his family with us. And we were the ones to spend his last day with him. I think a letter would be nice."_

"_Campbell!" The man in question closed his eyes at that, and his shoulders jumped up a little at the loudness of the voice, and the vehemence in it. The outburst had, surprisingly, come from Perez. "Just shut the hell up, will you? No one's writing no god damned letter to Aart's mom."_

_One last time, Campbell looked to him, almost searchingly, and Jack only inclined his head, not in acquiescence with Campbell's wish, but to tell him to let it rest and go back to his cot. And he didn't bother to wait and see if Campbell did indeed do an about-face and left him alone. He couldn't stand to look at him anymore – he couldn't stand to look at any of them anymore._

_Where the hell had he been that a Jap rat could get to Aart like that?_

"_JG?" Donny – he knew even before he'd turned to look at him. The other man set himself down on the edge of the empty cot next to his. "You trying to write to your girl?"_

"_Yeah," he replied quietly. "The words just aren't coming. Nothing feels right."_

"_Why don't you just write whatever? Just ramble on. It ain't got to be poetic. She seems like a nice girl, from what I can tell. I'm sure she'd be happy to just receive a letter from you."_

"_Yeah," he said again, still quietly, turning onto his back and letting his head sink into the pillow, his body heavy from the length of the day._

"_JG –"_

"_Are they mad at me?" he blurted out suddenly, his voice small and hushed, sounding for all the world like a guilt-ridden five-year-old Jack Thompson, sounding like he was afraid._

_In that moment, he hated himself._

_And when Donny was quick to reassure, he hated himself more. "No, of course not. Why would they be mad? You didn't point a gun at Aart. You didn't pull that trigger. It's no one's sin but that son of a bitch that killed him." He closed his eyes, shutting out the expanse of green above him, and just half-heartedly listened to Donny getting up a minute later. "You get some rest, Jack," he said – pitifully, perhaps; _sympathetically. _"Maybe you'll dream of your girl."_


	2. That Time The Phone Rang

_A/N: So, I thought I'd elaborate a little further on what this whole thing is. Basically, this thing (if I take it further) will be a collection of drabbles regarding the life of one SSR Agent, Mr Jack Thompson, and his wife, Clara Elizabeth Cauley. She's an OC, and I...am basically a giant fangirl at heart, and I have had a thing for Jack Thompson the moment he appeared on screen even if he was chauvinistic and douchey at first. I really like Peggy and Sousa together, and it seemed slightly unfair to me that Jack didn't have anyone of his own, so that's why I dreamed up Clara. And, yeah, none of the stories will be in chronological order - so each story will jump backwards and forwards in time, from when Jack was in the Navy to the timeline of Agent Carter and also to the future, when he's Chief._

_At times, some of the one-shots might be plotless, but that's normally just 'cause they're fluff. And, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it. Please leave your reviews, good or bad. Constructive criticism is always welcomed. Thank you!_

* * *

No one ever called him on his personal line. No one had the number. Or, at the very least, he didn't think that anyone had the number. Had he given it to Clara? She was the only one who knew, wasn't she? She had to know. She was his wife. And if anything were to happen to him, Dooley would have to tell her. "He's been shot," Chief would say. Surely that was the only way to put it? So she had to know. How else could anyone explain that an executive at a telephone company had been shot?

No, of course she knew. In fact, he probably told her himself. He'd been recruited two months after the war. They'd been married for all of a year then. He remembered everything now, every little detail – how she'd sat on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped together. "What about architecture?" she'd asked. Wasn't it his dream to have one of his buildings as part of the New York skyline? He'd had his interview with Parker &amp; Beauregard, and hadn't it all gone well? He was going to be an architect, just as he'd planned to at nineteen.

He didn't remember exactly how he'd argued the merits of working with the SSR. No doubt he'd said something about being able to help people and making a change and all that. And anyway, they both knew he wasn't exactly cut out for civilian life. All he really remembered was that tiny apartment they were living in. The kitchen was practically in the bathroom – or should that be the other way around? The living room should've been more aptly called a corridor, albeit a larger one, and their bedroom was…well, it was tiny. You could fit a bed in there and that was all. And it was a small bed, too. She had to snuggle right up next to him to be able to fit in the bed. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing; especially considering the heating in the apartment was abysmal. But that wasn't what he'd wanted for her. Marrying her in the spring of '44, he'd thought he could give her the world, once the war was over. He'd work at an architecture firm, he'd get paid a hell of a lot more than what the navy was giving him. They'd probably still live in an apartment, but it would have been a lovely apartment. She could've had the fresh cut flowers she wanted in each room. They'd have a piano and a violin and he could listen to her play.

But all this was getting to be quite beside the point. The point was that no one ever called his personal line. Ever. And certainly, no one ever called his personal line twice, and in rapid succession. He left Dooley's office, even as Peggy was in the middle of saying something, without a single world. What had his wife called it? A 'French exit'? Leaving without excusing yourself.

The telephone on his desk was ringing. His telephone. It never rang.

"Hello?" he said into the receiver. There was static coming from the other end, as if there was no one on the phone. "Hello?" he said again, hearing static. "Hello?" That would be the final 'hello', he decided. If no one replied, he'd put the phone down. Hang up.

Then there was a crash, something falling off a table. He heard breathing, slow and controlled. Then, very quietly, "Jack?" Clara.

"Baby?" he said, his tone strangely calm, nothing to denote the furious pounding of his heart. It was not nearly the whisper her voice was, but he wasn't screaming. That was something. "Baby, what's wrong?"

More static. Something else crashed. "There's someone in the house."

Vaguely, he wondered why she was calling him instead of the police. The nearest police station was less than a ten-minute drive away. But it was only _vaguely_ that he thought that, a small voice in his head. The larger part of him was panicked. If his heart had been beating furiously before, he was now in danger of having a heart attack. "Don't hang up. I'm coming."

Briefly, his eyes flitted to the clock on the wall. Five-past-five. Rush hour. It'd take an hour to make it back to his apartment. His mind was racing, trying to figure out the fastest route home, how much time his wife would have before the intruder found her if he hadn't already, how much trouble she would be in. He had all these numbers in his head, and map routes – it was actual genius stuff, as if he was seeing everything floating around in the empty spaces of the office. Then Krzeminski was at his side. He was saying something. Jack? That was all he ever seemed to say to him. Well, he also spouted sheer stupidity, but he was pretty sure that he was saying Jack.

He barely heard himself saying that someone had broken into his house, hardly registered the alarm on Krzeminski's face. Was he giving instructions now? Yes, he was. He was telling Ray to stay by his phone. Clara was still on the line. If anything happened, she'd need to tell someone. And then he was running. Christ almighty, why was he running? When had he decided to run? The elevator came into view. It was still on the first floor. They were six stories up. He could run down the stairs faster than the elevator could get up. And if he had to stand there, waiting, he was sure he'd explode. Spontaneously combust, then explode. Didn't Clara say something about humans having methane gas in them? He would probably explode.

Outside the building now, it would seem that he'd decided to run all the way home. He could probably be there in twenty, twenty-five minutes. Much faster than being in a car during rush hour in the city. Had something happened? It'd been four, maybe five minutes since he left the office. Had the home invaders found her? Did Krzeminski hear her screaming into the phone?

His heart was pounding, both from the exertion and the fear. He really could have a heart attack, drop dead then and there. 

* * *

He burst through the door. Or rather, he would have, if the door weren't already wide open. It took him all of eighteen minutes to get back to his apartment. It seemed that even he had underestimated how fast he could run when under duress. He'd never even run that fast during the war. He thought that his lungs were going to break his ribs.

She was sitting on the floor, knife in hand, surrounded by carnage. Half of him had expected to see blood on the blade and a dead body at her side, but no. The blade of the knife gleamed silver in the light of the setting sun, and there was no body, only broken things. A lot of broken things. Picture frames, upended furniture, torn open cushions, flowers on the floor – the only flowers she could afford to put in their home. She looked up at him, at the gun he held in his hands, then into his eyes.

"They took the jewellery box," she said.

Ah, the jewellery box. _Her_ jewellery box. It'd always seemed out of place to him in their tiny apartment. All the gold and diamonds and sapphires probably cost more than this whole building – a remnant from her old life as an English aristocrat, before she'd married him. Their first fight had been about that jewellery box, he recalled now, sitting down next to her. She'd wanted to pawn some of her jewellery off. They'd have extra money. She said she didn't mind. She didn't want them anyway. And he…well, he'd felt insulted. There'd been a fair amount of screaming that night, probably too much of it really. He didn't remember how the issue had been resolved. Had he apologised? He probably had. She was everything to him. And it felt strange, sleeping next to her when she was seething. And then she'd apologised, too.

Truth be told, he wasn't surprised that they took the jewellery box. It was really the only thing of value in this shithole. Maybe he shouldn't call it a shithole. The apartment wasn't all that bad. It was tiny, so much so that it was illogical for anyone other than a lonely bachelor to live here, but it wasn't a shithole. Perhaps it was only a shithole because it wasn't what he'd wanted, for himself, for her, for them.

He took her hand in his. She was shaking. "Did they hurt you?" he asked. He found that his voice was soft, something he reserved only for her.

Clara shook her head. "They couldn't find me. I was hiding under the sink."

At that, he chuckled. How she managed to fit herself in the cabinet under the sink was beyond him. He brought her hand up to his lips, kissing her knuckles, then rested it on his lap, patting it as his other hand reached for the knife she was still holding.

Maybe she found the thought of her wielding a knife ridiculous, but she let loose a little laugh – shaky and nervous, wanting to alleviate the fear and tension inside her. "I think I would've stabbed him if he'd found me."

"I'm sure you would have," he said in reply. He put the knife down next to him, and then began to trace his fingers along the back of her hand. "Baby, if anything like this happens again, you need to call the police. Not me."

"I know," she said immediately. "I know. I'm not daft." He began to protest, to cut in with, "I never said that," but she cut him off. "It's just that I was calling you to see if you would be coming home for dinner and then I heard the door being kicked open and I knew that it couldn't possibly be anything good, so I crawled under the sink. I was too afraid to get out and dial for the police, so I figured my best chance was to wait for you to pick up."

He sighed. Of course. He felt stupid for even thinking that she wouldn't know to call the police. He pulled her into his arms. She was still shaking. She leaned against him, and for the first time since his ship docked in a port in England and he knew he was safe and the war was well and truly over, Jack felt pure, genuine relief. She was leaning against him, her body soft against his, and the weight of her, pressed into him was so reassuring. She was okay. She was all right. He hadn't lost her. All of her was in tact. There was not a scratch on her.

"Oh, baby," he whispered into her hair. "I thought I was going to have a heart attack. When I heard the crash and then your voice, I thought I was going to have a heart attack." He kissed the top of her head. Repeatedly. He could cry now, sure as day, but he wouldn't. "I'm so glad you're okay."

A strangled laugh escaped her throat and her arms wrapped themselves around him. He looked around their ruined apartment. Just as well, he supposed. Well, the bit about someone breaking into his home and scaring the very life out of his wife wasn't good, but this was as good a reason as any to move. He'd been meaning to talk to Clara about moving anyway. This way, she wouldn't protest. He had enough money saved up to get them a nice little place just outside the city, far enough to be safe from the hazards of desperate drug addicts and the homeless that seemed to be a constant in Manhattan, but close enough that it wouldn't be much of an inconvenience to drive to work. He'll talk more about it with Clara once the shock of this whole situation had subsided, he thought.

"Why don't you get some rest, darlin'?" he said to her, dropping the g as only a Southerner could.

In true Clara form, she protested. "I have to clean up."

He pulled her away from him, both hands cupping either side of her face. "You don't have to do anything. We'll clean up tomorrow." Her mouth opened, no doubt to protest some more. She would protest a nurse trying to stitch her up if there was someone else who needed help, he was sure. "No," he said. His tone was firm, as if to say, "That's the end of that. No more from you, Clara." And then he got up, and pulled her up along with him, guiding her to their bedroom.

He shrugged out of his jacket, loosened up his tie and undid the first two buttons of his shirt, then helped Clara unzip herself and slid her dress down the length of her body. She climbed into bed in nothing but her thin, milk white chemise. And the heating was still abysmal in their tiny apartment, so he pulled the covers up over her, kicking off his shoes as he slid into bed with her.

No more obscenely cold rooms, he decided. No more tiny bed in a tiny room with no flowers, and certainly no more home invasions. 

* * *

He woke up at some time between nine and ten o'clock in the evening. Clara was sound asleep next to him, the covers pulled all the way up to her chin in an effort to ward off the cold. Slipping out of bed as quietly as he could, not wanting to wake her, Jack exited their bedroom and padded across the living room, careful not to step on bits of broken glass that he could pick out from the low light of the moon. He grabbed a chair from the floor and jammed it under the doorknob, against the front door. He'd be damned if there was a second break in today.

He walked to the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator door before sighing in evident disappointment. Damn bastard took my beer, he thought to himself, cursing the intruder up and down in his mind, because it wasn't enough to take a man's wife's jewellery, apparently. The man's case of beer had to be taken as well.

He dialed the number of the police station. Someone picked up on the third ring. He recognized the voice immediately. "Hey, Stan. It's Jack. My apartment's been broken into."

"Hell's bells, Jack," the voice on the other end said, accompanied by the sound of static. "Is everything okay? I'll send a couple of uniforms down."

"No. Not tonight. It's late and Clara's asleep. She was home when it happened."

"Christ. Is she okay?"

Stan sounded genuinely concerned. Jack had to smile at that. But of course Stan was concerned. He and Clara had had dinner with Stan's family a couple of weeks back, and they'd loved her. "Yeah, she's fine. Just tired and shocked. But send the uniforms tomorrow? I've got to go to work and I sure as hell don't want to leave her alone."

"Sure thing, Jack," he said. "They'll get a more detailed statement tomorrow, but I think I'll just get everything in motion first. Was anything stolen?"

"My wife's jewellery." This was followed by a wince from Stan. "All my beer." At this, an even bigger wince. "I think that's a…" He stopped mid sentence, a thought suddenly occurring to him. "Hold on a minute there, Stan. I need to take a look at something." He placed the telephone onto the counter, heading for the armoire in the living room. He checked the little box inside.

"God damn it," he bit off. "God damn sons of bitches."

Of course they took his wedding band!


	3. Thirty-One

_A/N: Wow, okay. This took forever to get up. BUT it's MAJOR fluff. It's probably the only piece of fluff I've ever written. Apologies and, uh, maybe leave a review? I'd greatly appreciate them._

* * *

She pulled the covers up over Jack, up to his shoulders from their previous position just above his waist – well, it wasn't so much 'covers' as it was a blanket, and even then, it wasn't really a blanket. It was more of a sheet, the kind that you laid down on the mattress. The kind that she ought to have laid down. But she'd been too tired, and then he'd brought in the mattress from the living room and set it down where she'd like the bed, and it'd looked so inviting. Neither of them had bothered with an actual blanket, reaching instead for the first thing in the box closest to them that would be big enough to cover them both, too sluggish from the packing and the carrying and the unpacking and the cleaning that they'd done that day.

Except they'd moved into the house – _their _house – two days ago, and they still hadn't bothered to look for a blanket. Granted, the pair of them had been busy unpacking other parts of the house, but they really could be moving faster. At the very least, they should already have their clothes in the closet and dresser, and not still be fishing for shirts and pants and skirts from inside cardboard boxes. And she couldn't find the comb either, although she suspected that it would be found today – this morning, in fact – because Jack had to go to work.

He'd been very responsible the night before, pulling out his suit and shirt from the suitcase and ironing them. He'd even ironed his tie, which she never did. And his shoes were polished, his cufflinks already set out on the dresser next to his tie, his suspenders lying beside his suit on the sofa outside. There really was nothing for her to do that morning, no reason to scurry about the house in a manic state trying to get things done before he had to go into the city. And it was the most amazing feeling, being able to just lie there, well rested and slowly stretching next to her still-sleeping husband.

Just beyond Jack's head, the clock face read a quarter to six, and she leaned in closer to gently press a kiss onto his forehead, realising that she couldn't actually just lie there. He'd be up soon, she knew, even though they'd neglected to set an alarm the night before. The man was always up at six.

She lifted the covers away from her body, levering herself into standing with as little movement as possible so as to not wake him. She shrugged on her dressing gown, crossing the front over each other and tying the length of silk around her waist securely, then padded across the room, making her way to the kitchen. She still had that cake to frost – yellow, she decided, since the sky outside was an ungodly shade of grey.

She pulled the refrigerator door open and took out the cake, sitting prettily on its glass pedestal. The cake stand had been an unnecessary luxury, but Jack had gotten it for her anyway, and she'd never used it. How appropriate it was that the first cake it would hold was Jack's. The buttercream frosting was almost white against the slate grey of the metal bowl it was in. She may have beat it too hard in her rush to get it finished before Jack came back from the store with their dinner.

Setting the bowl of frosting down on the counter next to the cake, she began rooting around in one of the boxes labelled 'Kitchen' for the yellow food colouring. She could've sworn she still had a third of the bottle left when they packed up their apartment. But she couldn't find it in the first box, and it was already five-fifty. Jack would be up in ten minutes, maybe less, and she hadn't even gotten around to frosting the cake.

Screw it, she thought, looking back at the buttercream in the bowl and deciding that it was yellow enough. She found the spatula in the drawer just next to her and it clearly showed where her priorities lay, that she'd unpacked all her baking equipment, utensils, whatever and not the plates or cups. She and Jack had been using the same mug for two days now, sitting out on their front porch and laughing while having their meals. And oftentimes Jack didn't even use his mug, finding it easier to drink straight from the bottle. She'd shaken her head at him, and he'd laughed that she was the only person he knew who drank beer out of a glass. Not that she had a particular affinity for beer. She preferred wine, with the odd glass of scotch here and there in the week. He liked to joke that the quality that finally had him sold on her was her ability to hold her liquor.

"I like a girl who drinks," he'd said as he handed her a shot of fire whisky, and she'd downed it just like her brothers taught her when she was sixteen. But then she'd coughed – it was fire whisky, after all – and all her bravado was gone, and he'd smiled and given her his handkerchief, which she'd neglected to return.

She picked up a generous helping of the frosting and dumped it on the cake, watching with great satisfaction the way it immediately spread out on the top of the cake even as she flicked her wrist to get the excess buttercream off the spatula. It was just thick enough that it wasn't hindering the fluffiness of the frosting, but could still cover the cake completely and not let even a peek of brown show. She held the spatula vertically, taking care to only spread the frosting in one direction so she'd be left with a seamless white cake. And once the frosting was done, she added some lemon zest to the top of the cake. That way she'd still have the touch of yellow she wanted, and the lemon would bring out the taste of vanilla even more.

And then she picked up the cake stand, the palms of her hands flat against the bottom of it, and she half-ran back to her room. It was two minutes to six, and she wanted to be the one to wake him up.

On their bed (mattress?), Jack was lying on his back, the sheet having slipped halfway down his chest. He was breathing deeply – a clear sign that he was still asleep. She bit back a smile as she sank onto her knees on the mattress, awkwardly inching forward along his legs so she'd be straddling his hips. It occurred to her that she could've walked up to where his hips were and then got down on her knees, but she would save that piece of knowledge for the next time she found herself needing to straddle him for purposes non-sexual, and she settled herself on top of him, bearing half of her weight on her legs that were folded on either side of him.

The weight of her on top of him must have woken him up, because he stirred, and then his eyes opened and he was squinting up at her, ready to ask what the hell she was doing. But he didn't. Instead he smiled slowly, and she began to sing.

"Happy birthday to you," (here he'd interjected with an, "Oh, God.") "Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Jack." The monosyllabic nature of his name forced her to drag it out, so it sounded more like Ja-a-ack, with three different pitches to each a (she was a classically trained soprano, after all). "Happy birthday to you."

He chuckled, then propped himself up on his elbows, unable to sit up completely and only halfway risen since she was – well, she was sitting on him. With one hand, he reached up to the back of her neck and pulled her down for a kiss. She happily complied, pulling her hair away from her shoulders so she wouldn't get it all over the cake. "Thank you," he said, lying back down on the mattress. "But for future reference, most people don't like getting older, so maybe you can be less enthusiastic next time."

She got off of him and sat down where she'd been sleeping earlier, putting the cake down between them and then moving it because he'd spread his arms out to the side and begun stretching. "You're only thirty-one. That's not so old."

And then he was sitting up and the blanket slid further down his body to pool around his waist. She wished he hadn't worn a shirt to bed the night before, then realising the nature of her thoughts, blushed. He seemed not to notice. Outside the window, rain had started to fall. "You know most people die at sixty-five." He dipped a finger into the frosting and popped it in his mouth. "I'm already halfway there. Is this lemon?"

"Mmm," she said, presenting him with a fork so he wouldn't keep swiping off the frosting. "But halfway there is still another thirty-something years, so you can look forward to more cakes. And no, it's vanilla."

He smiled at her. Beamed, really. Her baking, to him, was like a triple scoop ice cream on a hot summer's day, when you could smell the heat rising from the asphalt. And her vanilla cakes were the cherry on top of that ice cream. "No plates?" he asked.

She smiled that smile she always did when she was embarrassed. "I haven't unpacked them." He almost laughed. She sounded adorable.

He dug into the side of the cake with the fork. It was so soft. And there was a layer of pink-red in between the yellow of the vanilla – strawberry? Honestly, his wife was too good to him. "This makes me not want to go to work," he sighed, taking the first bite of his birthday cake, which, apparently, was a cue for her to start eating as well. And that layer of pink-red was definitely strawberry.

"Maybe I should've put more lemon zest on the cake. More tanginess would've gone really well with the sweetness of the strawberries," she was saying as he fed another forkful into his mouth. He shook his head slightly. Of course she'd comment on the cake.

Another forkful went into his mouth. "It's fine. It's good. I like it."

"Jack, you would like anything, as long as it was a cake." She dug her fork into the middle of the cake, so she'd get the most of the zest. And then held her fork up to him.

Dutifully, he ate the piece of cake. She was right. More lemon did add up to better taste. "Not true," he said through a mouthful of cake. He hadn't quite realised that it'd been such a big piece. "It has to be your cake."

She tilted her head sideways, craning her neck a bit to catch a glimpse of the clock behind her husband. It was twenty past six. Her gaze flitted back to him. She really loathed letting him go. "Maybe you don't have to go." He looked up from the cake, at her. "To work. Maybe you shouldn't go in today."

He shook his head, his expression a little mournful. So she had heard him. "I can't, babe. This whole thing with Stark, and now some thing called a Leviathan…I need to be working on it."

He could hear her sigh, and then he was watching her hand as she pushed the cake away so she could move closer to him. He reached across her to put his fork down on the cake stand before gathering her into his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder, but only for the briefest moment, because in the next, she'd pulled away a little and looked up at him. "But you'll come home early, right? And we can have dinner together?" He smiled down at her, nodded his acquiescence, and then she was back to leaning against him, only she'd turned her body sideways. She was looking at the cake now. "I'd say take some to the office for your friends…"

Friends were a poor choice of words. They weren't really his friends. Except maybe Carter. But she wouldn't get a slice of his cake. "No. It's mine. I don't want to share it."

She laughed soundlessly. He didn't see it, but he could feel it, the vibrations through her body. It made him smile. "I was going to say that there's a giant hole in the middle of the cake from where we've been eating, but okay. Go ahead and be a greedy bastard. It's your birthday."

He lay back down on the bed, pulling her with him, and then turned onto his side even though he favoured lying on his back more. His shoulder hadn't been the same since that bullet. "Thank you," he said softly, caressing her cheek with his index finger. "Did I say that already?" She nodded that he had. "Well, thank you again, then. This is really nice."

"You're welcome," she replied, turning her head to look at him. It was six-thirty. He had to be in the office before nine, and it was a near forty-minute drive out to the city. And she hadn't made breakfast yet. "I haven't made breakfast yet."

That was Clara-speak for, "I should get up and leave you now," he realised, so his hand at her arm gripped a little tighter. "No, not yet. Just lie here with me for a second." And then he smiled at her.

It was an odd place to be, that – lying in bed with the woman he loved (his _wife_) on a Wednesday morning when he should be getting ready for work. But it was nice.


	4. Baby, My Baby

_She heard the door opening, the footsteps, the creaking of that loose floorboard, and then there he was, standing at the entrance to the kitchen, with his tousled hair and bloodshot eyes, so obviously sleep deprived. She smiled sheepishly, her body still swaying, wishing that they had a second storey to their house, just so she'd be able to climb up and down the stairs. Someone told her that that'd helped her with her child._

"_Sorry," she said, her voice soft even though the baby was screaming in her ear and by all rights, she should be speaking louder. "I've tried feeding her. I've tried everything, really. She just won't go back to sleep."_

_He approached her – them. It felt funny to be thinking of herself as 'them'. "Give her to me," he said, holding his arms out. Just two weeks ago, that gesture would've sent her running into his arms. He'd want to hold her anyway. But now, it wasn't her that he wanted. It was the tiny human in her arms. She passed her over to him, her arms suddenly feeling a bit too light, a bit too empty. He held her close to his chest, cooing and kissing. "Oh, Emily Jane, please go back to sleep," he pleaded with the bundle he was cradling. "Daddy's so tired."_

"_I think it's colic." She planted herself in front of him, stroking Emily's cheek. What was it about babies that made them so soft? _

_Jack bounced her a little in his arms. That was a good substitute for stairs, she supposed. "Trust us to have a colicky baby," he said, looking at her, smiling. Two years, he thought wonderingly. They would've made a nice photograph, standing there in the dark, trying to get their daughter to stop crying – his perfect little family. And then a thought occurred to him, "I thought babies didn't get colic until they were at least two months old."_

"_Really?" she asked absentmindedly, then looked up at him. "Perhaps I should've read more of those baby books." She almost laughed then. Between the two of them, they had exactly zero ideas about raising a little girl._

"_Should we bring her to a doctor?" Was colic serious? Life threatening? Maybe he should've read more books, too._

"_I'll take her tomorrow. But they won't have anything for colic."_

* * *

He hadn't been surprised to wake up to sobbing at two o'clock in the morning. She hadn't cried all day, after all, and it wasn't as if she was even trying to hide it. They were ugly, vicious, grief-stricken sobs, indicative of the horrible all-the-air-has-left-the-room sort of despair. He sat up, then scooted over to her side of the bed before twisting his body so that his legs could be firmly placed onto the floor beside her. His fingers dug into the mattress. He was unconsciously bracing himself for what would happen next. "Baby, come back to bed," was what he would've said if he hadn't made a mental note earlier that day to never use the word 'baby' around her. Instead, he said, "Clara, please. It's too early for this."

That was unnecessarily harsh. He made a mental note never to use those words, in that exact formation either. But they were out of his mouth now. He'd spoken them. There was no point in taking them back. So, in lieu of an apology, he said, "You need to get some sleep. You'll make yourself sick."

Ah, shit. 'Sick' was also one of the words he'd promised not to say around her. He sighed, heavily, audibly. It was two o'clock in the morning. He was unlikely to get anything right. "Clara, please," he tried again. When she didn't move, he slinked onto the floor to sit beside her, leaning against the bedframe. Her sobs had quieted and he felt like a jackass, which really was all too appropriate given the fact that the word itself was a combination of his name and 'ass'. He was being an ass. Perhaps that apology did have a point, after all. "I'm sorry," he said, taking her hand, feeling the heat radiate off of her person. "I should be more…sensitive. Is that the word I'm looking for?" He turned to look at her. The thought of Jack Thompson being sensitive should've sent her into a fit of giggles. Although, he supposed cheap tricks would hardly carry any weight in the face of her overwhelming sadness.

That was a phrase he'd learned from one of the many Guide To Dealing With Loss &amp; Depression books he'd read. He'd hoped to be there for her, reading those books, or _more _there than he already was. "You know, two o'clock is not too early or too late to eat," he tried again. He was looking at her, rubbing the back of her hand. "Sweetheart, you haven't eaten a bite of anything in three days. You need to eat." He curled his index finger around her wrist, then joined it with his thumb to make a little loop, making a great show of measuring the thickness – or rather, thinness – of her wrist. "You're wasting away, baby."

'Waste away' and 'baby' in the same, short sentence. He was setting himself up for a prize, really.

He closed his eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. He didn't know what to say to her anymore, didn't know how to be around her. Hell, if he knew for certain that she wouldn't take a knife to her throat, he would never come home. Because it physically pained him, being here, where he'd been so happy before and feeling only numbness, doing nothing but listening to her cry. And she cried everywhere – the bedroom as she lay half-sleeping, the bathroom as she let the water wash over her body, the kitchen as she – God knows what she did in the kitchen. She certainly didn't eat. And he'd been surviving off of that God-awful tuna casserole Jenny had made.

He didn't know what to say.

"You keep this up and you're going to end up in a hospital, Clara. And then who knows? You might die, too. Is that what you're trying to do? Starve yourself?" He turned his head to look at her and felt the sting of tears behind his eyes. "Clara, that's cruel. Do you hear me? You're being cruel." She let her head fall onto her lap. He could hear her crying again. "I can't lose you, too. I won't survive it. And I know that's selfish. I know you're in pain and God, I would do anything to take away that pain, to bear it for you. But I don't know how to. You won't tell me. You won't let me help." He put his hands up to his face, pressed the heels of them into his closed eyes. He would not cry. "I need you here, Clara."

It'd been raining the day they put her in the ground – heavy, torrential stuff. And everyone had been crying, with the exception of him. Jack never cried. He cursed and he punched and he kicked, but he never cried. Because Clara needed to cry more than he did, and if he started to, then there'd be no room for her.

* * *

Her brothers arrived on Monday. He'd been a little surprised, nearly tripping on the edge of the tub in his rush to get the door, knowing that his wife wouldn't. And then he'd opened the door and he'd seen them, and was more surprised that it was only they. Where was their mother?

"I'm afraid I can only offer you coffee," he said, properly dressed now and pouring three mugs of the steaming, black liquid even though they hadn't asked for it. He felt a little out of place. Clara normally did this sort of thing. "I'd offer you tea, but I'm not very good at making it." He set the two mugs down in front of them, then went to the fridge. All he had was chocolate cake. Was he supposed to serve cake at breakfast? He checked the time – quarter-past-eight. It was definitely too early for cake, but screw it. Or he could ask them if they wanted anything to eat. "Cake?" he asked, a little too cheerily, poking his head out from behind the refrigerator door. They shook their heads. Right, he thought, shutting the refrigerator door now. He should check on Clara.

"Thank you," they said, almost in unison. He straightened up. How did he respond to that? He didn't even know what they were thanking him for. The coffee? John had dropped by earlier with his wife and kids, at some time past six when he'd just woken up. He'd answered the door in his pyjamas. Jenny had made the coffee. "For taking care of Clara," William explained, somewhat uncomfortably.

Well, of course he'd take care of her. She was his wife. He'd promised to take care of her, hadn't he? But instead of saying all that, he simply nodded.

She was still in bed when he entered the room, although he could tell from the way her shoulders rose and fell that she was awake. He crossed the room to the side of the bed – her side of the bed, and knelt down next to her, kissing her forehead as he did so. "Your brothers are here," he said softly. "I'm not sure if you heard us talking in the kitchen."

Clara looked at him and he smiled, seeing her eyes. It was only within the last two days that she'd been able to do that, look at him. She blinked – once, twice, then turned her face back into the pillow. "Do you want something to eat?" Joanie had called last night, wanting to know how he was doing. He'd told her that he was falling into the role of caregiver a lot more naturally than he'd thought himself capable of. "I only have chocolate cake and tuna casserole, and I know you hate tuna. But I can drive into town and get you something if you want. Or you can have cake for breakfast." He laid his hand on her hip. He'd only been able to do that within the last two days, too.

"I don't want to eat," she said, her voice muffled by the pillow. It was the first she'd spoken since they'd taken Emily to the hospital – another hallmark.

He tucked her hair behind her ear. "Well, what do you want, then?" He was still smiling, and his face was starting to hurt.

"I want my baby back."

His smile fell. She'd spoken.

* * *

_Jack had been kind enough to get her one of those rolling cots for Emily, so she could have the baby with her wherever she was in the house, no matter what she was doing. It made it easier to tend to her, too – feed her, pick her up, burp her, kiss her – since she didn't have to constantly move from one room to another just to retrieve her baby. And the pink and white bedding that he'd picked for the cot was just the sweetest thing. And that elephant stuffed toy, too, although he'd made a big deal of it being an indulgence for their child, not for her. But she was the only one in the family who loved elephants to the point of near obsession. Emily (bless her heart) was only ten days old and had not a clue of what an elephant was, so Jack could say all he wanted to say, but she knew better._

_He'd come home at six the evening before, much earlier than what was usual, but she was hardly surprised. When she'd gone into labour, she'd made him promise to be home at a normal time, when normal fathers would return to their families, unless something had happened to make it utterly impossible to do so. And she'd been very specific as to what that something had to be._

_She was just bathing Emily when the bathroom door creaked open. He put a hand on her shoulder, squeezed it briefly before putting down the lid of the toilet and sitting down. "You really should lock the door, you know," he said, sounding for all the world like he'd been married to her for thirty years._

"_Jack, please. No one locks their doors." She didn't have to look at him to know the incredulous expression he would've undoubtedly fixed onto his face._

"_Are you meaning to tell me that I've been going to bed all this time with the threat of a psychopath slipping into my house and murdering me in my sleep?" Well, that was awfully specific. He must've had some deep, dark fear of it actually happening. "Emily Jane," he said, getting up and kneeling next to the bath tub, taking over the bathing of his daughter from her, "your momma is the most irresponsible woman I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, and for that, I apologise." He'd put on a heavy Louisiana accent, and she'd laughed. He wasn't even from Louisiana._

_And then bath time was over and Jack was sitting on the bed, cradling Emily in the crook of his arm as she chewed on the wrong end of her pacifier, and was happily saying no to every outfit Clara was pulling out of the drawer. She recalled now how he'd fussed about putting a bed in the nursery, constantly pestering her, asking if it was really necessary. But Emily had only been born ten days ago, and in those ten days, they'd yet to spend a night in their bed. She was certain he was grateful for that bed now._

"_That's it. This is what she's wearing. I'm not picking anymore outfits," she announced, approaching them. Jack was kissing the towel-bundled baby in his arms – "Making up for lost time," he'd said once – and relinquished her into her mother's arms with all the reluctance of a cat told to drop the mouse it'd caught. _

_He watched them silently as Clara fit the baby's limbs into the appropriate holes and then said, quite without thinking, "I think I can take Saturday off." She turned to look at him, and then Emily turned her head, too, and he wanted to laugh. She looked so much like her mother. "There's a new zebra enclosure at the New York Zoo. I saw it in the papers. And you can see the elephants."_

_She started to smile, but then stopped and narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure you won't have to work?" There had been many a day when she had to cancel her plans because "something had come up" at the SSR. "Who will you leave in charge?"_

"_Peggy can be in charge," he said absentmindedly, lying down on the bed. "She'd like that." He cast his eyes slightly sideways to see Clara smiling down at their baby. He smirked, unable to help himself. "And if I'm called in, then the least I can do is abandon you and Emily somewhere fun."_

"_Did you hear that, Emily?" she cooed at the baby, smelling deliciously of powder and that heavenly baby smell. Jack closed his eyes, smiling up at the ceiling. "Daddy's going to be abandoning us somewhere fun." And then she laughed, and he did, too._

* * *

He found her in the nursery and suddenly felt faint, not realising that he'd been holding his breath since waking up to an empty bed nearly two minutes ago. What a sight they must present – him taking up most of the doorway, his silhouette only very slightly illuminated in silver, and her, sat on the floor with her knees pulled up to her chin…

There was a banana on the floor with her, he saw, the surprise he felt nearly sending him stumbling backwards. He padded silently over to her, then sat down, positioning his body to face whatever she was looking at. It was only after two seconds or so that he realised she was watching the cot, her eyes set on the wooden thing, focused and laser-like, as if willing it to move on its own. He didn't know quite how long he'd been sat there, watching the place where their child used to sleep, now a strangely empty rectangular contraption that resembled a prison cell, but it had to have been a while. Because she was leaning on him now, Clara – leaning on his side. He could feel the weight of her and the weight of her head on his shoulder.

"Please peel this banana for me," she said softly, and then, seemingly having realised how odd her request sounded, continued with, "I tore it off with the little stem bit still in tact, and now I can't peel. It's ridiculous I know, I just…" She sighed. She sounded a lot like him when she did that. "I feel weak, like I haven't eaten in a week."

He pried the banana from her hand. "You _haven't _eaten in a week."

"Oh."

And then they were quiet again, so quiet that he could hear one of her brothers snoring from within the next room. But she'd inched closer to him. That was a good sign. And he felt that tiredness flood over him once again, but still he remained sitting resolutely straight. Not now, he thought to himself, listening to the sound of her taking a bite off the length of the banana, and then listened to her chewing. Then there was silence, yet again, almost as if she'd realised that she was eating and she shouldn't be, and Jack felt his body begin to tense up. And then –

"Do you think she was happy?" Her voice was small, hardly above a whisper, as if she didn't actually want anyone to hear what she'd said. "Do you think she knew how much we loved – we _love_ her, when she was with us? Did we show her enough? Did we kiss her enough? Did she like it when I sang to her? Or was she just suffering through it the whole time, wishing I'd shut up and go kiss you or something?"

She was crying now, the force of it shaking her body. Jack put his arm around her, pulling her closer, and then letting his other arm curve around her as well, willing his strength to be enough to keep her from falling apart, from sliding even deeper into her sadness. Her body was turned partly towards him so that she could hide her face in his chest, and that made it easier for him to bury his face in her hair. "I'm so sorry," he heard her say into the fabric of his shirt, her tears creating a damp spot. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know. Oh, Jack." She was barely able to get his name out, her pain forcing its way into her voice as she spoke. "All that time she'd been crying. I should've known. I'm so sorry."

"There was nothing you could've done," he started to say, and then found that he didn't know what else to say beyond that. Hadn't he rehearsed this speech a million times, thought about the exact words that he would speak when this very moment came around? Instead here he was, stuck repeating the same words to her as she bared her brokenness to him. "Clara, there was nothing you could've done. Nothing." He kissed the top of her head, unaware that his arms were tightening around her.

"She was crying all the time, Jack – all the bloody time. And I thought it was colic." She was holding onto him now, her fingernails digging into his back. "I didn't…didn't know that it was –"

Fuck that. "You couldn't have known. You couldn't have known, Clara." He pulled away from her, untangled his arms from around her, only to put his hands up to her face – her tear-soaked face, so broken and sad. "Losing Emily, that isn't your fault. No one knew that it was sepsis. You weren't the only one." She closed her eyes, and even then her tears kept streaming. "No. No, look at me." He grabbed her shoulders, shook her a little. "Look at me, Clara." Somehow, she managed to open her eyes. "This is not your fault, it's…it's someone else's. Us losing our baby – people keep telling me that it's all part of some plan. So it's not your fault. It's theirs – God, the Universe, Fate, whatever. They did this. They took our beautiful little girl away from us, or they let it happen, but you…you didn't do anything wrong. You were a good mother. You did everything right. They just cheated us out of a life with our baby girl."

He wanted to cry – God knows, he wanted to cry. But he couldn't just yet. She was so broken, Clara. She needed him so much.

He couldn't fail her, too.

* * *

All of him was sore when she woke him up – his arms, his legs, his back. Although, he supposed that was to be expected given that they'd fallen asleep on the floor of the nursery the night before. And the splitting, thundering headache he had – well, that was to be expected too. He felt like death. He felt like he wanted to crack his skull open and replace his brain with someone else's, or release the pressure that was building up within the confines of his cranial bones the same way one would release steam from a pot.

He cracked one eye open, partly to allow himself to adjust to the brightness in the room and partly to take in the sight of his wife standing next to him. She was still wearing her nightgown, a cover-up draped loosely from her shoulders and tied around her waist, albeit not very securely. From beyond the door, he could hear talking – male voices, probably her brothers.

Last night felt like a dream, all the crying and sobbing and heartache. And, truthfully, Clara didn't look like she was doing any better than she had been following the days of Emily's death. She still looked tired, like he could break her if he held her too hard.

If he could hold her at all.

He touched the tips of her fingers, his question – how was she? – left unvoiced. "I don't think I'll be going into the office today," he said, his voice returning to that same tone he'd used all the days before, reverting to the role of the dutiful, understanding husband. She needed him more than he needed himself, more than he needed her.

She sat down next to him, managing to be graceful even then. He almost smiled. "I made breakfast." She tilted her head then, just a little sideways, watching him, her eyes set on his own, and his heart caught in his throat, some small part of him daring to hope that she was all right now. But then her eyes flitted to the floor, and her voice when she spoke was too soft for her to be okay. "I'm going to bed."

He looked at the clock, the arms pointing to eight and twelve.

She needs you, he thought. _She needs you. _"Okay. Did you get anything to eat at all?"

"I'm not hungry."

He watched her as she stood back up to her feet, and continued to watch her as she sat on the edge of the bare bed. He'd stripped it of the covers and blankets when he'd thought he was ready to clear out the room, but he'd just ended up standing by the side of the cot, his fingers almost cramping up because he was holding the edge of it just a little too tight. She was lying down now, lifting her legs and bringing them up to her chest, curling into a fetal position.

This was when he walked away, he supposed. Her back to him was normally a clear sign that she wanted to be left alone. And he should've walked away, but he found that he couldn't. "I love you, you know," he said from the middle of the room.

"I know."

He approached her, then laid down next to her on the bed. She'd curled up in his arms that very last night they had Emily, right there on the bed. She'd laid her head on his chest and laced her fingers with his as they listened to their baby sleeping in her cot. There would be none of that for a while, he supposed. And he should understand, give her the space she needed. He should leave.

But then her hand moved, and he felt the tips of her fingers touching his, and then she was holding his hand and she'd turned around. He turned his head to look at her, but her eyes were closed. She moved her head a little, and then he could feel it on his shoulder.

"You were a good father. You did everything right," she said softly, repeating the same words he'd spoken to her the night before, and a choked sob escaped him, as if his throat had closed down the minute the sound started to leave his mouth. His eyes were stinging, and he hurriedly closed them, willing the tears not to fall. But they did, and he felt her grip tighten. "You were a good father, Jack. You did everything right." He thought his heart was folding over inside him, crumpling into a little ball – everything hurt. He could hear her crying now, too. "You were a good father."

* * *

_A/N: Nothing to say on this one. But, as always, I hope you enjoyed and leave a review._


	5. Steps For Being Left Behind

_A/N: Hello! I'm so sorry this one took longer than usual to get up. I just wanted to take a moment to thank all you lovely people who have reviewed and favourited and followed. It honestly means so much to me and really does make my day to read your kind, encouraging words. I have loved Clara since I first thought of her, and I'm so glad that many of you have come to love her as well. So, just once more, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much._

_That being said, I am going to be starting college next week, so I'll definitely be a lot busier. But, I will be trying my best to write as many of these as I can this week because I do so enjoy writing them, and I like knowing that you're enjoying them as well. Hopefully I will still be able to get at least one chapter up per week._

_Anyway, enough of that. As always, enjoy and leave a review!_

* * *

The telephone had rung, and for the umpteenth time in probably as many weeks, she was so grateful that Jack decided to have another telephone installed in their bedroom. It was far too much hassle to get out of bed at half-one in the morning and pad out to the living room, only to come back and wake her husband up to take the phone. But, even though the telephone was on Jack's nightstand, she still found herself having to reach over him to take the call, else they'd have the phone ringing all through the night. Because, really, why would anyone call in the wee hours of the morning unless it was an emergency? And no one ever had any emergencies that related to this house, except for Jack.

"Jack," she said, although her voice came as more of a hoarse whisper. It was only her second word after hours of sleep, after all. She held the receiver to her chest, the top of it just skimming the edge of her collarbone. "Jack." Here she cleared her throat, and then once more said, in a louder voice, "Jack, wake up. It's the office."

"What? What office?" His eyes were still closed, his voice was husky, and truthfully, his words weren't enunciated properly. She thought him still asleep.

Her right arm, the one that was straightened, with her palm pressed into the mattress so as to keep her propped up was beginning to tire. She drew her legs up properly then, and tucked them underneath her so that she was kneeling, so that she was able to shake her husband awake. "Darling, it's the office."

To his credit, he did wake, even if it did take a good shaking for him to actually rouse. "What time is it?" This was said as he pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes.

She didn't bother to look. It was too dark to see. "Late."

Clara thought she heard him mutter, "Fuck's sake" under his breath before he took the receiver from her. She was no longer awed, or even surprised as she had been the first time when he spoke into the phone with a clear voice, as if he hadn't just been sleeping. The first few times this'd happened, she had straightened up and turned on the lamp on her bedside table, earnestly listening to whatever he said, picking up on what she could, trying to figure out if he'd have to leave, if some situation had imploded, if it was dangerous. But now, she reclined into her previous position on the bed, turned onto her side, only just aware enough to not settle into his side or lay her head on his shoulder.

And sure enough, a minute later, she heard the bed creak as he started to move. And then came the very slight breeze that always accompanied his lifting of the covers. And then she felt the emptiness, the largeness of the bed when he wasn't in it – this was why she liked to sleep diagonally on the bed when he wasn't around. There wasn't enough space for him to fit in next to her, and it didn't feel quite as vacant, devoid of the warmth and shape of her husband as it were.

The bathroom door would open now, and the water would soon begin to run – ah, and there it was. By her estimation, she'd have about three minutes before Jack was dressed and ready, and would come by the bed and kiss her cheek. Normally, she'd have stayed awake during those three minutes, even if she was only half-awake and her eyes were closed, but she'd baked too many pies and cookies and little cakes earlier today in preparation for the church's bake sale tomorrow to not be tired. And what was it Jack said? It's not about the quantity of sleep, but the quality? Well, she must've had an amazing three minutes of shuteye, because when she awoke to his hand on her hip and him already bent down for that quick peck, it felt like she'd been asleep for at least an hour.

She made a small sound, an exhalation, and then turned a bit to look at him, cracking one eye open a sliver. "Leaving already?"

"Mmhmm." He kissed her temple this time.

She sighed contentedly. It was a prerequisite every time her husband was affectionate, even if he was leaving her in the dead of night. "What time is it?"

His lips were no longer on her forehead as he pulled away, but she could still feel that he was hovering over her. "Two-fifteen." Americans and their odd way of telling the time. No quarters, no halves, no to's and pasts. "Listen, honey. I know you have that church thing in the morning, and I know I said I'd help, but I probably…"

Even as he said it, she thought it – _won't be home till later tonight._ "That's alright. You don't like going to church anyway." He smiled a little bit, though it was much less a smile and more an incredibly slight upward tilt of one corner of his mouth. He was going to leave very, very soon, likely within the next minute or two. "What's happened?" He raised his eyebrows a bit. She hardly ever asked questions anymore about this sort of thing. "It's not your night, but they're calling you in. Is it serious?"

"_Ach_, it's just Chief. It's nothing serious. You don't worry your pretty little head now." As if to further insinuate his point, he patted her on the top of the head, and lying down as she was, she felt a little like a child. And it did sound as if he were trying to placate her.

No. No further questions, she told herself. He wouldn't want to worry her, and she shouldn't give him cause to fret. She drew the covers up over herself and settled into her pillows, making a great show of being comfortable. "Okay, then. Lock the door when you get out."

"I will." He tugged on the lamp pull, and then it was dark and she could hear the fifteen footsteps it took him to get to the door, then there was creaking and very shortly after, a decisive cli – "Love you." _And then_ there was a click. The door had been shut.

She kept her eyes closed, but her vision was filled with little specks of darker than darkness, as if there were miniscule dust particles that had gotten into her eyes and stuck to the back of her eyelids. She studied them for a moment, focused on their throbbing as opposed to the sound of her front door opening, then shutting, then locking. She barely heard the faint rumble of the car's engine from their bedroom.

She pressed two fingers to her neck, in the soft hollow area just beside her windpipe, and counted the number of times she felt the slight jump. When she got up to sixty, she opened her eyes, took a deep breath and sat up.

Jack was gone two nights out of the week, but that was for the night shift. It was different when he got late night phone calls asking him to 'go in'. And no matter how many nights they'd been jolted awake by the shrill trill of the telephone, she could no more help herself from feeling terror – she'd like to say it was small, but it wasn't. It was really quite sizeable – at the thought of what he could be getting into than you could abolish the monarchy back home. It was simply ingrained. It was a forever thing.

She didn't like worrying. She hated having to sit at home, with her arms curled around her knees as she waited for news, either from him or from The Office. She didn't particularly enjoy feeling like a helpless little thing. She was not helpless. Far from it, even. But every time he left, he had this way of sucking all the air out of her lungs, and she couldn't breathe until she knew for certain that he was all right. It was a cliché thought, and she swore she'd learnt it from a film, but how else was she supposed to feel? She was the wife of a man who toted a gun around, who was probably, right at that very minute, facing off with someone – or perhaps many a someone – who also toted guns around. On any given day, there could be a barrage of bullets, and all of them aimed at him.

And all this silliness with Howard Stark and his weapons of mass destruction? Jack never talked about his work, of course, but she kept abreast with the latest goings-on through the newspapers. It was the only way she would know anything about the perils bedevelling him. There could be a scaled back version of a hydrogen bomb hidden somewhere in the city right now, that was smaller in size but not at all diminished in projected annihilation, and he could very well be blown into hundreds of little pieces or charred beyond recognition.

In retrospect, it was amazing that she was able to internalize her fear. Jack would never catch her hyperventilating, never catch her sitting at the dinner table picking away at her hands as she waited for him, never catch her pacing to and fro, only to rush into his arms when he stepped through the door and thank her lucky stars he was alive. He was staggeringly lucky to have her.

She took a deep breath to calm herself, keep from crossing over into a private mania. God, but she hated feeling useless. That's what it was. She wanted to be doing something. Every day he was out, saving people, saving the world, and all she did was bake and clean and cook and occasionally knit. How was knitting going to help him? And it frustrated her more knowing that had she studied something like physics or mathematics, some form of engineering, the SSR would be happy to have her.

Grabbing her pillow, Clara kicked off the covers – almost violently – and positioned herself to stretch out diagonally across the bed. This was the second step. She laid on her back, then hooked the blanket with one foot, bringing it up to where she could clutch it and pull it over her shoulders, using another foot to guide the rest of it over both her legs. It was not quite warm enough to forego the covers, but not quite cold enough to wrap herself in them, so she would push the covers down and expose her shoulders and arms. Turning onto her side, she exhaled, and then inhaled, and then exhaled again, and she repeated this process three times until she felt her body relax. She could try to sleep, count backwards from one thousand in her mind.

And she'd started to, too, but whom was she trying to kid? There would be no sleep for the rest of the day. There was simply not a way that she could quiet her mind enough to allow for the gradual slip into slumber.

It was not a normal life, her life. To have your husband say "Love you" every time he left for work because he didn't want to leave you with a bad memory in case that was your last memory of him, in case "Love you" were his last words and he wanted them to mean something.

"Get a grip, Clara," she bit out harshly, clutching the sheets tightly on either side of her, her fingers twisting. "We have to do something. We can't sit here and talk to ourselves. We are not insane." Once more, she closed her eyes, and once more, she measured her breathing. "Jack is fine. There is no machine gun H-bomb." _Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale_. "Jack is okay. There are no Russians in New York. There is no portable, hand-held atomic bomb that will destroy the city." _Inhale, exhale_. "You are better than this. You will not sit in this bed and mope. You will go do something." _Open your eyes. Inhale, exhale._

She would finish frosting the cookies, she decided. Turning onto her other side, Clara dug both her elbows into the mattress and propped herself up into a twisted position from which she would be able to get up easier, and then crawled out of bed to plant her feet firmly on the floor. The wood was cold against her bare feet, but she found that she liked the feel of it. She walked over to the door, to where the light switches were, and flicked one of them on before leaving the room. The clock on the bedside table read half-past-two. It'd only been fifteen minutes. Jack wasn't even in the city yet. He was still safe in his car.

For the briefest moment, she considered making her way to the window, to the chair that she'd draped her dressing gown over, then decided against it, even though her nightgown came only halfway down her thighs. It was late and it was dark, and she was in her own home. Even so, there was something vaguely exciting about being up and about in such indecent attire, even if she was alone.

Padding down their hallway, she made a right into the kitchen, and then made a beeline for the refrigerator, flicking switches as she entered to light the room. She pulled out her tub of icing, placed it on the countertop that served as her work station, and begun shoveling spoonful after spoonful of frosting into a piping bag. She positioned her hands, holding the piping bag, above one cookie, tracing the design she would like onto it.

She had such steady hands – surgeon's hands, and after piping about a dozen cookies, this thought suddenly halted her. She felt that familiar fullness climbing up her chest, up and up until it reached her throat. And it wasn't the lovely sort of fullness either.

No, stop. She twisted the top of the piping bag tighter, her eyes locked onto a bare cookie as if it was the most important thing in the world, as if it held the secrets of the universe.

Church bake sales? Tea with the neighbours? Appropriate attire? When did these things start meaning anything to her? Why was she here, frosting cookies, instead of being out there, doing something? Doing anything other than this. She was a housewife when she was meant to be more than a housewife. Her husband was a hero, and he was probably out risking his life at this very instant, while here she was, in a kitchen, making glorified biscuits look pretty. Baked goods were not going to help her breathe better. Miniature cakes would not make her stop thinking about Jack possibly getting shot or stabbed, and what techniques she could use in the unlikely case of needing to operate on their dining table. Pies would not –

No. No, no, no, no.

Step one, she dropped the piping bag and pressed two fingers to the side of her neck, in the soft hollow spot right next to her windpipe. She counted, _one-two-three-four-five-six_…


	6. After Saving The World

_A/N: This is just a short little drabble (like, really short. It's not even 2000 words long) that I felt compelled to write after watching Valediction for the umpteenth time. As always, I hope you enjoy my little take on Jack, and leave a review!_

* * *

It was late. He wasn't quite sure just how late it was, but as he stood on their front porch, he knew that the sky had gone well past the inky midnight shade. It was on to something darker now. Inside, Clara was probably fast asleep in their bed, turned on her side, her dark hair fanned out behind her. In his chest, he swore he could feel a sort of crumpling, and he dropped his coat to the floor only to follow suit. That crumpling feeling was forcing its way up his throat. He could feel it, halfway through his oesophagus, and he clamped a hand tight onto his mouth to stop any kind of sounds that might want to break through.

He was so tired. It was the first that he'd admitted it, he thought. And he didn't even know why he felt so suffocated – they'd won. They'd managed to prevent what would've been a full-scale massacre in Times Square. It was a victory for the ages. If the work they did ever appeared in the papers, the headlines would say that they'd literally saved America. But no, tomorrow's headlines would say, "Howard Stark Cleared of High Treason", and Chief and Yauch and Krzeminski and all those other men they'd lost – they would have no mention.

"You don't have friends," his wife had said once, eyeing him from above the rim of her tea cup, "you have people you work with." And she was right, he supposed. But coming into a job like this, you were aware of the risks you undertook, aware that on any given day, someone you know could get shot or stabbed or blown into a thousand little pieces. He just hadn't expected it to be over a man's vendetta. Acting under Leviathan's orders or not, Ivchenko had set out with the sole purpose of tearing down Howard Stark, and they'd lost a lot of good men because of that – anger and weapons that shouldn't have been built, shouldn't have been there in the first place.

God, he wasn't even entirely sure why he was so overset. People died every day. And he'd certainly seen and dealt with more than his fair share of death.

It just wasn't fair, he supposed. It wasn't fair that these men had come home from the war, and hadn't found the peace they were looking for. It wasn't fair that they'd gone through hell in a foreign country, in a foreign field, bleeding for men they'd only just met, and then to have died just when they thought they were finally safe.

Ray, for all his faults, was a good man. He was a prick to his wife, yes, and he had a steady girlfriend and a string of affairs on the side, but he'd always suspected it was to deal with something else. Maybe it wasn't related to the war, maybe it was. And Yauch was just a lonely soul, wasn't he? On several occasions now, he'd wanted to invite him for a drink after work, but never did because he knew Yauch was a heavy drinker. Again, he thought it a sort of coping mechanism for something.

No one had escaped the war unscathed, this much he knew. It was death and destruction on a whole other level, and it was all encompassing, its devastating effects felt worldwide. That was why it was called a world war, he reckoned. Even now, a year after the war officially ended, he still wasn't sure how life could go on as it had before. Nothing pre-war seemed to be real, and nothing post-war seemed to be right. It baffled him how someone like Stark could go around whoring and drinking and hopping from party to party. How could he not feel it? The persistent gnawing sense of…of whatever it was that was clawing at his chest.

Even Clara – sweet Clara, with her beautiful smile and kind eyes – had seen things. She never spoke about it, but it was there sometimes, a lingering despondency that he could see when she did the dishes or put away the washing.

"_Ach_, Jack. Get a hold of yourself," he whispered harshly to himself, letting his face fall into his hands. He breathed a heavy sigh, and then pushed himself up into a standing position. He inserted the key into the keyhole, turned and heard the lock click open. For some reason or another, he felt himself beginning to say, "Honey, I'm home," even though he'd never said it before. It was such a cliché thing to say, and anyway, he was never home early enough to be able to call into the house like that. But there was this nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach to do it, to call out and wait for her response.

But he didn't. Instead, he shut the door gently behind him and locked it again, twisting the knob a few times for good measure. He didn't know why he did this, as they lived in a lovely enough neighbourhood, and his neighbours certainly left their doors unlocked all through the night. Jenny – who lived right next door, and was always over for tea – had actually once chided him for keeping a baseball bat under the bed. "As if you would ever need that, Jack, with your bolted doors and locked windows."

He stepped on the back of his shoe with the heel of his other foot and slipped his shoes off, one after the other, before making his way through the house and towards the bedroom he shared with Clara. Along the way, in the living room, he deposited his hat and coat and all other things encumbering him on an armchair, and began to loosen his tie. She would huff in the morning, he knew, when she saw that he'd just left his things lying around the house, and he would feel awful as she joked about how he had no concern for her, but for now he couldn't care.

There was hardly a sound as he entered and then left the living room, walking along the hallway to the bedroom. Even when he pushed the door open, it was dead quiet, not a creak to be heard. And then there she was, indeed turned on her side with her hair fanned out behind her. There wasn't much light in the room, but the curtains were slightly parted, having not been properly drawn before she retired to bed, so he could see the gentle, barely-there rise and fall of her body as it moved in tune with her breathing.

He took his tie off completely, and then divested himself of his shirt. It took no more than twelve steps for him to reach the bed, and then very soon after that, he was slipping under the covers to cuddle up right next to her. He could feel the warmth radiating from her body as he placed a hand on her waist, Clara already making the littlest of noises as she came to. And then he was properly next to her, his front pressed against her back, and he wrapped both arms around her.

"Jack?" she said softly, still half-asleep, and in response, he nuzzled her neck, nodding slightly. She made an "mmm" sound and then twisted around in his arms so that she was lying on her back. He stayed on his side so that she could nestle into the crook of his body, her head between his neck and shoulder, her hip slightly above his. "How was your day?"

As one hand tangled in her hair, he wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to ask her about what she'd seen working in the hospital during the war. He wanted to ask if she felt that the war, though only short lived, had taken over their lives completely for the six years that it had gone on, and was still taking over their lives. He wanted to talk about why he didn't have friends, to tell her about Chief Dooley and how he didn't want to go to his house the next morning to tell his wife what'd happened. He wanted to bury his face in her chest and talk to her about the men he'd lost and his cowardice and how he was sure that she was the only thing that had kept him alive.

But instead, he pulled her even closer and kissed her temple. She was falling asleep again. He could tell from the way the pace of her breathing became different. He untangled his fingers from her hair and let his hand fall to her shoulder, and there he began to caress, the backs of his fingers stroking gently her soft skin. It was absurdly late, he knew, and she was probably beyond tired. He should let her sleep.

"My day was fine," he said against her skin, and she nestled even closer as he said this, making herself comfortable. "Just another regular day."

He couldn't tell her anything. He'd come home, and he'd come home looking for the American dream that he'd been fantasizing about since he first left. Saying, "Honey, I'm home," as he crossed the threshold of their house and being assaulted by the smell of apple pie, the sun setting outside the window turning the white picket fences gold. And his wife, in a winsome floral number, her hair styled in waves tumbling down her shoulders, coming to greet him with a hug and a kiss.

He kissed her temple again. She was properly asleep now. "I love you very much," he whispered, lying on his back and closing his eyes, one arm still wrapped around her shoulders.

Things could still turn out right for him. He was still alive and he'd come home. Life post-war could be a good thing. Everyone lived with ghosts, didn't they?

Yes, life post-war could be a good thing.


	7. Edith and Her Sailor

_A/N: Hey, guys! I AM SO, SO, SO, SO TERRIBLY SORRY THAT IT'S TAKEN ME SO LONG TO UPDATE. I hadn't realised that it's been more than 90 days since the last chapter was published. But anyway, I just wanted to say how thankful I am to everyone who's taken the time to read this. Even though I've been MIA for a while, this is kind of a little passion project of mine. And I'm so, so, so grateful for the wonderful reviews you've been leaving. I am not exaggerating at all when I say that it truly makes my day._

_That said, I'm on break until 20/1 (I know, AGENT CARTER!), and I promise I will be writing heaps more so I can have something to post in case life gets crazy and I can't write. I would not want to go missing for over three months again. Also, be on the lookout for a new chapter sometime later this week if you haven't got this story on alert. _

_Again, thank you so much for all the lovely support you guys have been showing me, and I hope you enjoy this piece as well. As always, leave a review at the end of it if you've enjoyed it. Or if you haven't, either one is fine._

_**Sidenote: I say some things in the chapter condemning Japan and the Japanese people. That's not at all how I feel. I absolutely adore Japan and its culture and people. I was just trying to get into the whole Allied soldier during WWII psyche.**_

**_And sorry that this author's note is so long. I promise the next one won't be quite as long. Cheers to you if you've actually read this far._**

* * *

He couldn't really remember a time when he didn't hate rain. He hated how dark the sky would become, and how quickly it happened. One minute it was blue and light and bright, and the next thing you knew, everything had turned into the most damnable shade of grey. It happened back in Georgia, it happened in New York, it happened in London – especially in London – but he was of the mind that rain in Japan was different. Here, the grey of the clouds was even more persistent. It was darker than it'd ever been anywhere else, the sort of colour that bordered on night. It was like they were intent on snuffing out whatever remnant of hope you had left in you, whatever positivity or happiness, even if it was only a mild happiness.

It started in his teeth, the anger. He would grit them so hard that his jaw would hurt and he was sure he'd ground his teeth into powder. Then it travelled down along the length of his neck, and when it got to about the middle of his chest, his collarbone would start to ache in much the same way it had that one time he'd fractured it. And then it was in his arms, down to his fists, down to the tips of his fingers. This was when it'd start to go bad, because they itched to hit something. The tingle underneath his skin – he'd clench and unclench his fists to keep the blood circulating. But then finally, it would be in his gut, and it'd rise up within him like bile, all the way up to his throat, and he just wanted to scream. He wanted to punch at it and, more than once, he found himself positively yearning to pick up the rifle that was hanging idle by his side and hold it ready – to shoot at fucking rain.

This place was slowly driving him insane, he knew.

Yet despite the rain, he found himself straightening up a little bit so he could see from under the cover of his jacket as he slowed his jog, holding a hand out until the vehicle stopped and he felt the cold of the metal beneath his palm. He could see the man inside smiling at him, so he smiled back, almost shockingly aware of how cold and wet his legs were, and how the front of him was quickly following suit courtesy of the wind that was blowing rainwater into his face. "Anything for me, Mack?" he shouted over the torrential noise of the rain. It was sort of like the static that you'd get on the radio, only louder and more dense.

Oddly enough, this was the sort of rain he actually didn't mind as much. When it rained as it did right now, looking like it wouldn't have stopped even if God (for lack of a better word) himself commanded it, it seemed like it'd flood the whole earth, and that gave him a strange degree of comfort.

"No, nothing today, son," said the slightly portly man in the truck. He exhaled heavily and made a conscious effort not to look disappointed – he knew that the emotion hadn't registered on his face, but he dipped his head a little anyway for good measure. He felt the truck start to move, so he balled his hand and hit the door with the side of his fist twice to signal it was all right now to pick up speed, and to say thank you, and then he started to move, too. "Don't worry, Thompson," Mack called out to him, "I'll come get you when something does arrive."

"Thanks, Mack!" he shouted back, and began to jog back to his tent. Everything below the level of his groin was pretty much soaked through, and water had gotten into his boots and seeped into the fabric of his socks. It only served to further irritate him. "Fuck," he whispered harshly, pulling his jacket tighter around himself and holding the front of it tightly to his chest, leaving only a small opening for his eyes to see out of.

The wind wasn't letting up and the rain was only falling heavier, as if they'd sensed his aggravation and wanted to mock him. Fuck this war. Fuck those cocksucking pieces of Japanese scum and their fucking kamikazes. Fuck Japan as a nation, and fuck them in particular –

Why hadn't she written him? He knew he sounded like a whiny man-child, but he had to wonder. When the first three weeks had passed without a letter, he told himself that it was just slow mail. Things were worsening over in Britain, were they not? The radio reported nightly air raids in London. Maybe it was just difficult to get anything out of the country, much less to get it all the way out to the Far East. But then more weeks passed, and now it'd been very nearly two months, and that one boy with the sweetheart in Brighton that he'd never met had received spades of letters.

Clara was either dead or done with him, and both thoughts filled him with such terror that he found himself unable to sleep at night, the panic that seized him causing his heart to stop for a beat, and then two more, and then suddenly starting up again with the fervor of having run a marathon.

"Excuse me," he said, just barely dodging a whirl of blue and white and gold. He slowed down to look back at the girl who'd run past him. Had the dictionary an illustration of the word 'drenched', he was sure he'd find a picture of her. Tendrils of her hair that had escaped her bun was sticking to the back of her neck and the side of her face, and her dress was clinging to her like it'd been made of some diaphanous material rather than the standard cotton that constituted a nurse's uniform. The poor girl looked like she'd be carried off by the wind, or beaten down by the rain. "Hey!"

He caught up to her in five steps and then – ah, what the hell. He was already wet anyway – proceeded to remove his jacket from about him and held it over her head. "Here, hold this, will you?" he said, shoving a packet of cigarettes that he'd already been holding into her hand. "Don't want it getting wet." She poked her head out a fraction from underneath the jacket. He thought she'd said something that sounded a lot like a thank you. He started to wave her off, and then remembered that he was holding his jacket over her, so shook his head instead. "Where to?"

"The aid station." Which, thankfully, wasn't too far away.

When they moved again, she picked up her pace, likely out of consideration for the fact that he was being rained upon, and soon enough, they were under cover of the roof of the barn that acted as the aid station. She pressed her hands against the wall and leaned against it, her mouth slightly parted to aid in her breathing. Jack pulled his jacket away and hung it up across a barrel, neither of them needing it now that they had shelter. "You okay?" he asked, bending down to get a better look at her.

"Yes, I'm okay." Able to hear her properly now, he realised that she sounded eerily like a Hollywood starlet – Joan Fontaine, maybe. It suited her. "I've been running for a while. Just not used to that sort of exertion."

"It'll help you a lot better if you breathed through your nose," he recommended.

She sucked in one last breath with her mouth, and then exhaled and turned her head to look up at him, breathing through her nose now. Her eyes were astonishingly blue and her lashes were very pale, and she had a dusting of freckles over her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. She really was very pretty, standing at just a head shorter than him.

"I'm Edith."

"Jack," and then seemingly having remembered himself, tacked on, "Thompson."

"Hi, Jack." She turned around, prompting him to straighten as she relaxed and tipped her head back. After a while – "You know, I used to be deathly afraid of blood before all this," she said loudly, to be heard over the rain, and Jack found himself mildly startled at hearing her talk so freely. "I'd go out of my way to avoid it. One time, when my brother sliced his hand open, I fainted." She laughed at that. He smiled indulgently at her, his mind still quite uncomprehending of why she was telling him all this, and then looked out past the rainfall. "Now I see blood and I think, 'That better not get on me.' Blood's very hard to wash out, you see." She was explaining her predicament with such earnest, he was surprised she hadn't grabbed his hand.

Edith seemed to wait for him to say something. He could feel her eyes on his face. "Well, at least you've gotten over your fear of blood," he tried. "That's something."

She laughed again, but this one wasn't as contemptuous as the last. This one was genuine and light. Involuntarily, his heart ached at the knowledge of her being here, with him, with an angry gash of faded, rust-coloured blood across her apron; all that youth and innocence and prettiness marred by all this blood and mud and death.

"Do you mind if I have one of these?" she asked, holding up the pack of smokes he'd handed to her earlier. And before he could even respond, she'd knocked one out and held them between her lips. He obliged by lighting it for her. "I've been dying for a smoke. Half the girls have been bumming off whichever serviceman passes through here."

He drew one out for himself, and as he held it close to his face to place it between his teeth, he was warmed by the memory of being in a room in the Rose &amp; Crown, the taste of salt on her skin, her softness underneath his fingertips, and always – _always_ – the smell of cigarettes permeating from the next room. It was why he'd taken up smoking in the first place, so that he'd always remember it, every single detail of it.

* * *

Even as he did it, he was distinctly aware of the fact that he'd never been quite as gentle with anything the way he was now, laying the photograph out gingerly atop his pillow. He wanted to kick himself. He'd been so good all this while about being careful with her picture, but none of it mattered now, did it? He very nearly tore the photograph in half while pulling it out of his pants pocket. And he'd already torn the top of it clean off, almost taking Clara's head with it as well.

But he'd remembered to keep his smokes dry. God, he was a jackass.

"What happened there?"

He looked up. Donny. "I got rained on."

"Damn. You got a spare?" He shook his head, moving the pillow to a sunnier spot by the entrance of the tent, placing it on the edge of a cot that wasn't his. "Maybe it's a sign," Donny piped up from behind him. He didn't feel like turning around and dignifying his remark with an answer. "What's it been – two months? Since you last heard from her?"

At that, he did turn around. "Not yet. It's just slow mail. Things are getting pretty ugly over on the other side."

"I got letters from my mother and sister today," the other man quipped, as if that was supposed to mean anything.

"Yeah, well, America isn't Britain. I doubt we have Nazis bombing Manhattan."

Donny bit into a cracker, and he'd wager it was a stale one. "Maybe she's found someone else and she just can't bear to tell you," he suggested, not for the first time. Jack stretched out on his cot, but not before he gave Donny a look that essentially said, _"Watch it."_ "Why is that so hard for you to believe?" he asked, with such gusto that implied he'd been offended. "People move on, you know. Especially in wartime. I mean, look at Jacobs, for fuck's sake." When Jack didn't respond, Donny took it upon himself to elaborate. "It's the loneliness. It gets to you, you know? Sooner or later, you start looking for something closer, someone who can actually, physically be there, to hold you and love you. Even if you gotta pay for it."

"Shut up, Donny," he finally replied. "What the hell are you talking about anyway?"

"You and your girl, dickhead. You're the only one of us who hasn't tried to get with them Japanese girls since we've been here. Honestly, don't you ever get lonely, Jack?"

"I love Clara. Why would I –"

"Love's not the question. You could love someone and still be lonely. It's a human thing. You need affection, not just the illusion of it from words on a paper from a girl half the world away."

"Well, it's a question of morals, then, 'cause the way I see it, that's just selfish."

"Selfish? What's so selfish about being a soldier who just needs to be touched?"

He dragged a hand down the side of his face, burrowing his cheek into the palm of his hand. This was a conversation they've had far too many times, after the second week Clara's letters stopped coming. "Look, it's all fine and dandy for you. You're not committed to anyone back home. But I am, and right now, it's pretty much the only thing I've got to keep me going." He turned onto his side so he could look at Donny, who was looking intently back at him. Maybe he even looked a little sad, feeling sorry for his pathetic, lovelorn friend. He shook his head and turned onto his back. "I mean, we've got Japs shooting at us with tanks and machine guns and just generally trying really hard to kill us, and it's her that I keep fighting for. Do you understand?" He looked to his friend again, and still found nothing. "I've got a whole future with her. And I do want a future with her. It just – it just keeps me going, okay? She's what keeps me alive. So I'm not going to disgrace her by going to a whorehouse."

"Oh, Jackie-boy," Donny lamented, "You're just a sad little fuck."

"And you're a cocksucking piece of shit, but you don't see me complaining," he shot right back, smiling now at his friend, the earlier tension having dissipated. It was strange being in the Navy sometimes, he had to admit. "I've got to sleep next to you, for fuck's sake."

"You like it. Don't pretend. I'm a catch." There was a glint in his eye when he popped the rest of his cracker into his mouth. All was well now. "Oh! There was a dame looking for you earlier. Didn't talk to me, of course, but kept going around asking for Jack Thompson. You know her?"

Of course he did. Who else could it be? "Nurse? Blonde hair, blue eyes, kind of tall? Freckles on her face?" Donny nodded at that, looking only slightly nonplussed at Jack's detailed description of her, but more so amused. He waved him off. "Edith. Yeah, we met earlier. Poor thing looked like she was going to drown in the rain."

"You should go talk to her. She pretty much went tent to tent trying to find you." Jack started to scrunch up his face in the way he always did right before he winced, made an 'mmm' sound, and then voiced his uncertainty on the situation. And Donny caught it. "No," he said, pointing a finger resolutely at him. "That 'poor girl' went and asked at least twenty people if they knew where you were. Just go talk to her, give her the time of day. She probably hasn't been with a guy since she came here."

He nearly choked on nothing. "For fuck's sake. Sex isn't the only thing people think about."

"Okay, so maybe she wasn't thinking about jumping your bones when she went 'round from tent to tent, but she's definitely sweet on you."

"I just met her an hour ago," he protested, turning once more onto his side and closing his eyes. "Get your head out of your ass, Donny." But even as he was telling his friend what an idiot he was being – albeit far more creatively – he'd decided to try to find her at the aid station later. He'd put it up to chance, he thought, knowing that the nurses worked in rounds and she might not even be there. But somehow, he hoped she was, and it was an odd feeling that, to be looking forward to seeing her.

* * *

He'd taken care not to look like he'd been trying at all to look presentable. He threw on his clothes as nonchalantly as he possibly could, shrugged his coat on and did nothing more to his hair than to push it back with his fingers. He was only stopping by to see a friend. "Just popping 'round," Clara would say.

He pushed the door open and let himself in, shutting it again quietly behind him. Immediately, he was struck by the stench of illness, and he suspected his aversion to the venue showed clearly on his face. "Shit," he said under his breath.

He hated being around sick people. It wasn't so much the sight of them – all that blood and palor, he could handle. It was the smell of them that got to him. He couldn't quite explain it. There was just an overpowering scent of staleness that wafted through the building, and it was constant and you couldn't catch a break from it. The people in the room – they looked like they were dying, and they smelled like they were dying. That was the only way he could think to describe it.

He turned around to leave, one hand already on the handle, ready to pull the door open. "Jack Thompson," she said from behind him, and she sounded happy. It warmed him.

"Edith," he said, turning again to face her. She had a big, cheesy grin on her face, and he couldn't resist smiling back. "I heard you were looking for me."

"I was. I did," she replied quickly, then closed her eyes and shook her head once, and as she quietly negated the way she'd stumbled over what to say and her nervousness, she wore a look on her face that reminded Jack of someone in pain. Successfully, he held back a chuckle. When she opened her eyes again, she was visibly steadied. "You're just in time. I just finished my rounds."

He raised his eyebrows at her, as if at once asking what she had in mind and saying he was surprised at her insinuation as to the rest of the evening. Obviously, he'd expected to spend some time with her doing God knows what, but he hadn't thought about any particular activity. But what amused him more, as she turned redder and redder, was that she'd clearly thought – and dare I say, _hoped_ – that they'd be spending some time together as well.

He decided to rescue her again. "How about a walk?"

She nodded, and he opened the door for her, standing to the side to let her through. He tried not to remember doing the exact same thing at a restaurant for a different woman.

"So, tell me about yourself," he said to her back, following her out of the aid station. She stopped and turned to look at him, waiting for him. When he was at her side and they began to move together, she asked what he wanted to know. "Where you're from, what you'd hoped to be before this whole mess of a war started, what you still want to be – tell me" he looked at her, and she looked at him, the luminance of the moonlight making her eyes shine "what makes you human."

Much like she had during their first encounter, she parted her lips slightly and the rise and fall of her chest suddenly became more palpable, as if it was more difficult to breathe now. He set his eyes straight ahead again, leading her gently with subtle movements on a walking trail he'd neither been on nor planned. If they walked halfway across Japan, he rather thought he'd be happier. "I was born and raised in California, in a little town about three hours away from Los Angeles. You wouldn't have heard of it. It's so small, you wouldn't even know it was on the map unless you were looking for it."

"I was born in Dallas," he told her, feeling that that was the natural course that their conversation was headed in.

"Texas?"

"Georgia."

"Georgia?" Her voice was louder as she echoed him, and he laughed at the incredulity within it.

"It's a small county," he explained. "Tiny, really. There's only about a thousand of us, and the area of our town is only five square miles."

She widened her eyes at that. "My goodness. Well, you win, I suppose."

"I didn't realise it was a competition," he responded, to which she rolled her eyes. "No, but go on. Tell me whatever you want to tell me."

"I wanted to be a singer. I moved out to LA when I was eighteen while my parents were screaming at me that I'd regret it. But I always knew I had this great talent, you know?" Her fingers brushed against his as they traversed a slight incline, only just, and he felt a jolt of static. Her skin felt cold. Even as she continued talking, he removed his coat and lay it on her shoulders, embarrassed that he hadn't offered it to her sooner. She looked up at him, the blue of her eyes curiously sharp and enchanting, and having caught his eyes, blushed prettily. "When you're from a small town, whatever talent you've got is amplified, I guess. They make you out to be this sensation and it inflates your ego and you think you're all that. I thought I was going to make it big in Hollywood. As you can imagine, it didn't work out the way I thought it would."

"But it might very well still work out," he offered.

"I suppose. But that dream's kind of dead to me now. Why, I'm here because – oh, I shouldn't tell you." She shook her head. "You'll think I'm silly."

"So now you make snap judgments about a man you don't even know?" He held an open hand up to his chest like he was affronted, and she laughed. It was that very same unfeigned, happy one he'd heard earlier in the day as they stood waiting under the overhanging roof of a barn. "Come on, tell me. It's no fun if we have secrets."

"Well, alright," she agreed, with a dramatic show of reluctance, before adding on with just as much drama, "But you have to promise you won't judge me," to which he responded by tracing a cross over his heart. _Cross my heart, hope to die_. "I volunteered as a nurse out of desperation. It wasn't because of money or anything like that, I was just bored out of my mind. My life wasn't panning out the way I'd wanted it to, and I suddenly had this bright idea that all I needed to do was to leave on some grand adventure and my eyes would open to all the opportunities I have, and all the beauty there was in the world. As soon as I was trained and qualified, I signed up to be sent here. I'd never seen Japan before – I'd never even heard of it, if you can believe that. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"At the time? Don't tell me you're regretting it now. You wanted to go on a grand adventure, and here you are, in the middle of a war, and you're a hero. There's no grander adventure!"

"Oh, you're just mocking me now."

"I'm not, I promise. You're here for yourself. I doubt most men even have a reason half as good as yours."

Edith took his arm, and he stiffened, though she seemed not to have noticed it. His mind raced for a quiet moment, achingly aware of the indentations her fingers were leaving on the fabric of his uniform and, underneath that, his skin. He almost panicked, wanting to brush her hand away, suddenly afraid that there would be evidence of this indiscretion. But then she looked at him, and her pale lashes were silver, having caught the light of the moon, and she said, "What about you, Jack? Why are you here?"

He felt compelled to answer her. He felt compelled to look at her. She was so warm and lovely. Somehow, he tore his gaze away. "I don't know," he confessed along a sigh. "I ought to tell you that I wanted to defend whatever good there was left in the world – very Captain America-esque, you know – but truthfully, I don't know. I just got my orders and I boarded a ship and now here I am."

He supposed he sounded forlorn, because she leaned in closer to him and said, "Fortunately," making sure to put particular emphasis on the word. "If you'd have waited until you developed a conscience – oh, don't look at me like that. You look the type to try and save the world. Very Captain America-esque – If you'd waited, you might not be here right now, and I might not have met you." She then rested her head against his shoulder, and a warmth surged through him. He wanted to take her hand, just hold it tightly within his for all the promises that she held.

She was sweet on him, as Donny had so eloquently put it. And he could fall in love with her. He really could. If he'd only allow it, the satisfaction he felt from being in her company could spiral into affection, and then he'd look at her and he'd want to kiss her, and the warmth within him would melt his heart.

But there was Clara, of course, whom he did love. Clara, whose face and voice and eyes made him jerk awake at night in cold sweat for fear that he would ever forget them. Who loved him, who'd spent the last night they had together trying to hold back tears as she lay in his arms, her nails biting into his skin. Clara, who never wanted to let him go.

He ached for her. His _heart_ ached for her.

God, how he wanted her with him. What he would give to have her beside him right now, her hand wrapped around his arm, her head against his shoulder. He'd hold her by her waist and he'd hold her tight.

Yet here he was, walking arm and arm with a woman who wasn't Clara, and as much as he longed for her, it wasn't quite as strong as the quiet happiness that was coursing through him, filling him up. So much so that he found he couldn't tell Edith about the girl he had back home, and shamefully, he didn't want to.


	8. not with a bang, but a whimper

**A/N: Hey, guys. Sorry it took 14 days for an update. I have had the worst writer's block you could imagine. I've literally sat in front of my laptop for hours on end, for many, many days, and still not been able to get anything out. Anyway, this one was very heavily inspired by the closing line of T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men", and I sort of just banged it out in an hour. The whole writing process was kind of just a blur of headaches and water and words that ceased to make sense.**

**I'm sorry that it's a little shorter than what I normally do. Please be kind. Thanks!**

* * *

For a moment, she just stared, annoyed, at the slightly parted curtains draped over her windows. She'd neglected to tuck the end of one half of the curtain under the other when she'd gone to pull them shut earlier, and consequently, there was now a little sliver of light that was shining intrusively into her bedroom. There must also be a breeze mucking about outside, because every now and then, there would be leaf-shaped shadows that would dance about in that tiny stretch of light on her floor. She'd been lying awake for hours now, and she couldn't stop staring at that little patch of pale off-white against the darkness of the rest of the space.

It'd been nearly twenty minutes since Jack had slipped under the covers next to her and kissed her cheek and whispered "good night" in her ear. Even with her back to him, she could feel the warmth that was radiating off of him, hear the evenness of his breathing, picture exactly the way his chest rose and fell with each inhalation and exhalation. He'd also curled his fingers a bit, and the edge of his knuckles were just barely touching the small of her back, remarkably pronounced, as if in defiance of the silky fabric of her nightgown that separated their skin.

She closed her eyes and breathed slowly, taking small breaths so that her shoulders and chest wouldn't move too much, and there would be next to no sound. The feel of his fingers right up against her body felt like an insurmountable weight that she couldn't quite explain, or even begin to comprehend. She just felt like she needed to jump out of the bed and go elsewhere, get away from him.

"Jack, there's something I need to talk to you about." Her voice sounded small, and meek, despite her trying to project it so that it would be louder and come off more determined. She had to shake her head at that, a part of her hoping that he was too deep into sleep and hadn't heard her.

She could feel the mattress shift under her husband's weight as he maneuvered his body so that he was no longer lying on his back, and before long, he was pressed up against her, one arm snaking over her waist and falling across her midriff, and the other occupying the space between her neck and the pillow. Instinctively, she leaned into him, even as a feeling that fell somewhere between reluctance and panic grew within her. She could hear him breathing in deeply, and then he'd buried his face in the crook where her neck and shoulders met.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that it was ridiculous for her to feel so – so – _something_ about him. She shouldn't like to call it fear, or to liken it to anything that even remotely resembled fear, because that would imply that Jack was capable of harming her in any way, or that he already had. And he hadn't. He was sweet and devoted, and she knew he loved her. There could never be a combination of words in the English language, or indeed in any heretofore known and unknown languages, that could ever be sufficient in describing how deeply he loved her. So no, it wasn't fear that she was feeling. It was more a sort of – guilt, she supposed, although even that wasn't quite the right word. And it implied that she harboured something for which she had cause to feel bad about, which she didn't.

"What is it?" he asked, his voice deep and gravelly, the way he always sounded when freshly roused from sleep. His arms around her tightened, but only a fraction, and only so he could squeeze her for a little bit.

"Well –"

"Is this really important, babe? Can it wait till tomorrow? I'm so tired. You won't believe the day I've had."

"Oh, no," was her immediate response to his statement, and she started to wiggle about so she could turn onto her side to face him, the tight band of his arms slacking appropriately to allow her the movement. "Did something happen?"

He made a sound, one that was rather like a precursor to a chuckle, but then stopped there so that the sound became a more contemptuous one. He withdrew his arms from around her, turning onto his back once more. "Oh jeez. What didn't happen? But I don't want to get into details, sweetheart. I'm so tired. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow?" She smiled at him in the dark and mumbled her agreement. "What're you making for breakfast tomorrow? I want to go to bed with sweet dreams of food."

This was it. This was the moment for her to interject with her thing. "I was hoping we could have breakfast at that diner you like," she said carefully, and then specified, "In the city."

"Ah, I like the way you think, Mrs Thompson. We could make a date of it." His eyes were most certainly closed, and though his speech wasn't even the least bit slurred, she knew that he was drifting off to sleep. "It'll be a short date, though. I do have to go into work tomorrow. Do you wanna take the car back? Or will you catch a cab?"

"Actually, I have business in the city tomorrow," she said simply, deciding that it was best to ease herself into the big reveal. Jack made a marginally interested "O" sound. "One of my applications _somehow_ arrived on the desk of the Chief of Surgery at Bellevue Hospital, and I gather that he must've really liked me because I've been called in for an interview. Tomorrow. At 10 am."

She wasn't unaware of the fact that she'd injected a cringing amount of faux-cheerfulness into her voice. Jack, for his part, slowly began to sat up the more she carried on with her news, and soon, he was sitting up fully in the bed, his back turned towards her, having swung his legs over the edge of the bed. She followed suit, pushing herself up into a sitting position, her legs tucked primly to the side.

"You're not seriously considering –" he started to say.

"Why wouldn't I –"

"Babe –"

"Jack, this is exactly the opportunity I've been waiting for. I mean, it's hardly chief of cardio, but I'll work my way up to that." He began to cut in again, saying her name in that hateful exasperated tone. She didn't want to listen to him, so chose instead to climb out of the bed and slip into her dressing gown, exiting the room.

There was a short pause between her shutting the door and heading to the kitchen, when there was no sound save for the padding of her feet against the hardwood floor. Then she could hear his footsteps, heavier than hers, and just as she took the final step of the stairs, the door was opened with considerable force, and the sound of his footsteps grew ever closer.

"Clara," he called. "Don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you." When she didn't respond, he called out even louder – though he did stop just short of actually yelling – "Clara."

She stopped in the hallway leading to the kitchen. "I want to go for the interview, Jack," she told him stubbornly, rather pointedly.

"Are we not even going to talk about this?"

"We shouldn't have to talk about it. You could just be happy for me and be supportive."

"I _am_ happy for you, babe. I am."

"Then why don't you want me to go for the interview?" she asked, a little impertinently, but more hysterically. "I trained for years to be a surgeon, Jack. What were you expecting?"

He simply brushed past her, flicking the light switches into on, and then turned around and looked at her with the most _pitiful_ eyes. And when he spoke, he spoke slowly, as he would when speaking to a child. It only aggravated her further. "Honey, I am happy for you. I know how hard you worked in university. I know how hard you worked to even get in. And I'm all for that, sweetheart – you, being amazing and breaking boundaries and proving whatever it is you need to prove. But actually taking on a job?"

She wanted to scream. "I'm good at what I do, Jack. I'm so, _so_ good. There is no one better qualified for it –"

"Don't raise your voice to me, Clara," he warned, raising a hand and pointing a resolute finger at her. It made her want to hit him. "Now, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told a friend – the truth. And the truth is that you can slave away for the rest of your life, and you'll still never achieve all the things you want to achieve, because no man is ever going to give you that amount of responsibility. I swear to God, Clara, you'll be little more than an amusing toy to them. No man is ever going to look at you and see you as his equal."

Horrifyingly, she felt tears well up in her eyes, and her lower lip began to quiver, prompting her to bite down on it. And what was even more appalling was that in that moment, she thought she hated him – him, her husband, with his condescending tone and self-righteousness. And far worse still, she felt the fight slowly ebbing out of her. "I could at least try," she finally said, suddenly exhausted. "You know how good I am, Jack. You _know_."

"I'm not saying no."

"No, you're not. But you're making it explicitly clear that you wouldn't like it one bit." At that, he at least had the good grace to look away from her, cast his eyes downward. "What I don't get is that you knew from the very beginning that all I wanted to do was be a surgeon –"

"I know you can't see it now, darling, but I am trying to save you from the disappointment and heartache that will only follow."

"– Honestly, Jack, what were you expecting? That I was going to just give it all up to marry you?"

He looked up at her, and when he replied, she knew that he was serious about it: "Yes."

And just that one word was enough to destroy her. It was so funny, wasn't it? Because up until then, she hadn't realised just how much power he held over her. The pain that shot through her chest was palpable. It stabbed away, and her insides twisted and twisted and twisted. And all she could see was his face – his eyes – "But I fought so hard for this Jack. This is what makes me…_me._"

"No, it's not."

"I gave up everything else to be with you. I had a good job back in London – I had a whole _life_, but I came here. For you. What were you expecting, Jack? What more do you want me to do?"

"I just want a wife," he said, and he sounded so sincere and truthful, it made her heart ache. He took a step towards her, and she had to fight the urge to take a step back. "Clara, I love that you're so passionate and driven and so strong. But – the truth?" She nodded once. "I don't want to come home to an empty house. I don't want to have to sit in the kitchen, sipping tea, waiting for you to finish work so that I can see you. It'll be like not being married at all."

"But it's alright that I have to do that?" She sounded spiteful even to her own ears, and undoubtedly Jack felt the same way, because he sucked in a breath, and it sounded suspiciously like a hiss. "You're always away. You have the craziest hours I have ever known. Most nights I _am_ just sitting in the kitchen, sipping tea, waiting for you to finish work."

"It's different for you, Clara."

"Because I'm a woman?"

"I'm not going to answer that. You'll hate me."

"No, I want to know. Just tell me. It's alright for me because I'm a woman?"

"Yes! Yes, alright?" he cried, throwing his hands up and turning away from her. He sighed heavily, laying his hands out atop the kitchen counter, leaning into it a little. "It's…it's just the way of the world, sweetheart. Things are so vastly different for men and women. And I don't want to end up being the bad guy just because I'm the one who's had to tell you the reality of it all and pull you out of your little fantasy."

She watched him for a while, still rooted to her spot in the hallway. She noted that he'd slumped his shoulders, which was generally a clear sign of despair for Jack Thompson. He was always so proud and confident, and his behaviour and posture mirrored that. In fact, the only times she'd seen him hunched over like that was when he had to leave to fight the first time, and then again after they were married and he had to leave once more.

"Just tell me one thing, Clara," he said after a long silence. He'd turned around to look at her. It broke her heart to see the defeat in his eyes. "Have I made you unhappy? And I don't mean just now. I mean, by marrying me, have I made you unhappy?"

She smiled even as she scoffed, and then put a hand up to her forehead and closed her eyes, shaking her head. When she finally looked up at him, she asked, "The truth?" And in much the same way she had earlier, he nodded once. "I don't know how to answer that right now."

He smiled at her, but it seemed so unnatural on him. He looked so sad. And then he was slumping down onto the floor, leaning back against the cabinets.

It occurred to her how absurd this whole thing was, that they'd been a perfectly happy married couple when they woke up this morning, and now here they were. How had this happened?

"Clara," he called for her, his voice small and tired. She looked at him, the blue of his eyes that she'd always loved now serving only to make her heart ache – for breaking or for longing, she wasn't quite sure.

"I love you."

"I love you."


	9. Maybe Maybe Maybe

For a brief moment, he thought about the way things might've turned out if he hadn't quit the Marines. Sure, it was tough, but he'd always thought that he was made for life as a soldier – the structure, the routine, the no-nonsense air of it all. And Clara – well, she would've made a fine officer's wife. He knew he would have climbed that ladder eventually; try to make more money to give her a good life. And anyway, he didn't want to be doing what seemed really to be more work for less pay. And there were perks that came with being an officer. Life on base could prove fatally boring – the sort of boring that sparked affairs and gradual increases in hatred and disenchantment and destroyed marriages. As an officer, he'd have a whole host of functions and dances he could take Clara to. They wouldn't get too terribly bored of each other.

And she was so beautiful too, his wife. At least two-thirds of the men would want to be him, if only for the more…_intriguing_ aspects of marriage that really ought not to be discussed.

But she'd have been no more than arm candy. She'd hate that. She was too ambitious, too willful, too bright. She'd probably up and leave ten years into it. She'd try to put up with it, stick by him and all that, but she'd leave eventually. Ten years seems the most she'd be able to suppress her misery. She probably wouldn't have agreed to marry him in the first place if he'd decided to stay on as part of the gigantic military cog.

Maybe he ought to have done it – stay on. She really wouldn't have married him. Then she wouldn't be standing outside his hospital ward crying.

He couldn't see her, of course. He couldn't even hear her. The damn hospital was cursed with good structure – those damned thick walls.

He wondered what she looked like. She would've rushed over from New York. It must've been absurdly early in the morning when she got the call, seeing as how California was three hours ahead. She would have had ample time to get ready. He didn't suppose there would've been an outbound plane until at least eight-thirty. But how do you go about your routine when you find out that your spouse had been found lying in a pool of blood in his hotel room? (_He was there for ages. The blood must have seeped through the carpet and stained the floor underneath. He'd be personally offended if it hadn't._)

But maybe he was flattering himself. Clara _was_ too bright, too willful. It wouldn't be at all out of character for her to be able to calmly manage her routine. It was one of the things he loved best about her, that she could remain objective about a lot of things.

But then again, he did get shot, was possibly lying on his deathbed. He _should_ be offended if she wasn't even a little bit of a mess. Yet somehow, he couldn't imagine her with wild hair, a few loose strands hanging by her ears, dark circles around her eyes, wringing her hands in her lap as she stood outside his ward talking to the surgeon. He could only see her as he'd always seen her – rosy, glowing – _too bright_.

Maybe she'd have been happier as an architect's wife. They could've stayed on in London. He could've had a hand in rebuilding the city, and forever after he could be content in the knowledge that he'd done something, somehow left a mark in what was otherwise a fleeting world. No doubt he'd be forgotten in the years-decades-centuries to come, but _he_ would know. And Clara would've been well on her way towards becoming a surgeon, because she wouldn't have had to leave her job, the program, to follow him. They wouldn't have left her apartment in Hackney, with its yellow cabinets and floral tiled backsplash that clashed horribly with the more Mediterranean floor tiles –

That tiny apartment, where light flooded in every minute of the morning and danced on the hardwood floors, where she was glowing and glittering and golden, still too bright.

Maybe he'd have been happier as an architect.

He supposed he'd ruined a lot of things. He was pretty much wholly certain that the only daughter of a British MP, trained in ballet and singing and the violin, provided every opportunity in life that most women – and even most men – could only dream of, had never imagined she'd end up where Clara was today, right this second.

Suppose she _was_ wringing her hands in her lap, her hair a mess, dark shadows under her eyes – who did she have to comfort her? A doctor she doesn't know? His colleagues (because Carter and Sousa must've found out by now. Somebody had to have called her) whom she'd never spoken to, never even met?

She wouldn't have written her family. For one, she hadn't had enough time, unless she'd written a letter while on the flight over. But a mortally wounded husband isn't something you'd want to write a letter about. You'd want something faster. You'd want a telegram. But she wouldn't have had time to go to the station. She would've come straight here, to the hospital. Unless she slipped out while he was unconscious. But Clara wouldn't do that. She'd be beside herself with worry, and she'd insist on staying with him. She did love him, after all. And anyway, aside from sheer time constraint, her parents and brothers seemed to occupy a completely different space in her life than he did. Anything to do with him didn't reach them, and anything to do with them didn't reach him. They hated him, and really, he couldn't blame them.

Here was a man, a complete stranger estranged from his own family, with no prospects other than the giant military cog he was already a part of, who was woefully inadequate for Clara Elizabeth Jane Cauley, their only daughter, destined to be a pioneering surgeon – and he wanted to marry her. They shouldn't have let him marry her. They should've barricaded her in her room the minute he got back from the war.

She was alone now, his wife whom he loved so much – so much, he would die a hundred times over for her; he would live a hundred times over for her. But she _was_ alone, and he'd done that to her.

She wouldn't be alone if he'd been all right with being a penniless pianist. She might've been happier too. Had he less pride than he did – less ambition, there would never have been nights of not coming home, of making her sick with worry. They might've still lived in New York. He could play piano at one of the many bars during the night and give lessons to children during the day. They'd live in a shoebox of an apartment that was nothing at all like the house they now had outside of the city, but there would have been a lot of light in that apartment, just like the one they'd had in London. She wouldn't wear any slippers as she tread lightly around the space, her feet arching wonderfully as she got up on her tiptoes to reach for things in the cupboards. And at night, he would hold her. They would never argue – well, hardly ever – so there'd never be a reason to sleep with their backs to each other.

He could've had an apartment filled with music. He could've spent more time with her, loving her – _showing _her that he loved her, instead of getting exasperated after a long day at the SSR. He could've been poor. Then she wouldn't have been alone. He'd be there for her. Maybe she'd have been happier.

Maybe he'd have been happier.

* * *

_A/N: I just figured that Jack would have a moment of clarity._


	10. love is so short

_A/N: This is set after the events of the episode, Life of the Party (namely Jack getting hit on by that blonde and that whole fiasco with Dottie), but before events of the following episode which finds Jack in London. I may have taken some liberty at adding time between those two events. I hope to be able to explain Jack's behaviour and actions somewhat in upcoming stories._

* * *

Sometime in the ten minutes it'd taken him to pay the cab driver and take a quick shower, it'd started to rain. It was nothing heavy – certainly nowhere near torrential, but just heavy enough that the sound of water hitting the glass and wood and slate of his house could be heard clearly within the silence of his bathroom. It calmed him tremendously, he realized, and for some reason, it felt as though it'd began to chill the near feverish warmth of his skin.

He sat on the edge of the tub, wringing his hands just the once in his lap. He stared at nothing – well, almost nothing. The bathroom floor was tiled, but he hadn't really registered the pattern. He hadn't really even registered the colour. It was only by the grace of his memory, of having been in this bathroom at least nine hundred times before, that he knew the floors were black and white. They were mostly white, though, with only hints of black – a border on all four sides and some patterns scattered with some degree of symmetry, he was sure.

Well anyway, he was staring at pretty much nothing, and his mind was not racing. In fact, he was probably thinking of nothing at all, which was somewhat both true and false. Certainly, he was thinking of _something._ He saw the floor tiles. He saw the lines of them. But he was not _really_ thinking anything, and he certainly wasn't thinking about what he should've been thinking about. It was a bit of a paradox, he supposed, if one could call it that.

Down the hall, behind the door at the very end of it, was his wife. She was fast asleep, he was sure. It was almost two o'clock in the morning and he hadn't told her he'd be coming home today. She'd wake up when he slid into the bed and she'd recognize him in that way that it seemed one's soul mate always did, without having to look at him, without him having to say anything. She'd relax into him. She'd smile. She'd be happy to see him. But she'd be so tired. She wouldn't try to engage him in conversation. She'd say, "I missed you," and, "I'm happy you're home," and she'd keep a hold of his hand over her chest, making him press right up against her. He'd kiss her shoulder and close his eyes, inhale the scent of her – roses, because she always smelt of roses – and he'd remember how much he loved her, how much he'd always love her.

_He'd remember._

Nothing could ever change how deeply he loved his wife.

_Nothing_.

For a moment, he considered his hand, bandaged and splinted, and he considered undoing the bandages. But then he shut his eyes, breathing in deeply then exhaling just as deeply. He loved her. He knew he loved her. _And she knew he loved her_. All he had to do now was to exit the bathroom, pad as softly as he could down the hall, and enter the room they shared.

So he'd do that. He would do exactly that.

He exited the bathroom and walked down along the hall, only vaguely aware of his suitcase sitting by the bannisters. Then he was in his bedroom – _their _bedroom. She was just a lump in the middle of the bed – _their_ bed – only her shining dark hair visible from underneath the covers.

It was cold.

He divested himself of the towel, completely dry now from having sat in the guest bathroom pondering _nothing_, and lifted one edge of the covers to slide into the bed next to his wife. The sheets were too cold for his liking, empty, devoid of his warmth as they'd been for the lack of his presence in the last four days. And then he was next to her, his hand first on her arm, then on the curve of her hip. Beneath his fingertips, he felt the silky fabric of her nightgown, and beneath that still, the slight chill of her skin. He felt her begin to stir before he saw it and to his horror, he choked up. All he could see of her was her hair and the profile of her face, her eyes still closed, yet he couldn't bear to look at her. So he bent his head in order to avert his eyes and he kissed her shoulder, taking in the smell of her as he breathed.

"Hi, darling," he said softly, his words only very slightly muffled against her skin.

She smiled. He couldn't see it, but he could hear it in the way she breathed on a long sigh. It was the sound she always made when she was content. And then she spoke, "Hi, Jack," and he couldn't help but smile against her shoulder, even as his heart beat quicker and the feverishness grew headier.

"You didn't say you'd be home tonight," she said, her voice thick with sleep. "I would've stayed up." He'd always loved how she sounded first thing of waking up.

He kissed her shoulder again, then settled in properly next to her. "That's okay. It's too late for you to be staying up."

Clara lifted her head oh so slightly and dragged one hand through her hair, gathering them forward and to the side to clear space for him on the pillow next to her. There was no question of her scooting further to the side of the bed. She'd stay in the middle, and he would press his body as closely as he could manage against hers, and they'd stay in the middle together. "I missed you," she said, taking the hand that was on her hip and bringing it up to her lips, kissed it, and then held it to her chest. With her eyes still closed, she said again, "I missed you."

Jack pressed a kiss to the middle of her back, where it sloped to a line. She did indeed smell like roses. "Happy to have me home?" he asked, almost too quietly. But if there was anything to suspect by the intonation of his voice, she did not suspect it.

Of course she didn't.

"Mmm. Very happy to have you home."

For a while they were quiet and the only thing audible was the sound of the night – the breeze created by the rotation of the fan, the rain outside splattering against the glass of the windows, the synchronicity of their breathing, the not quite silence of their neighborhood. But then she stirred even more, and he couldn't fall asleep because now he wasn't tired. Now he was thinking all the thoughts he ought to have been thinking earlier in the bathroom, or earlier on the cab ride over, or earlier on the flight home, or even earlier in Los Angeles, before anything had happened.

He remembered feeling incredibly calm the morning of, getting ready for his day as if nothing had happened. He'd gone in to the SSR offices as if nothing had happened; raged silently about Carter and Sousa as if nothing had happened; spoken to Vernon as if nothing had happened. He'd even decided that the best course of action for intelligence gathering was to go to London, as if nothing had happened, even while wholly acknowledging that he'd have to write to Clara or send her a telegram to let her know that he'd be gone for longer. The only time any thought of her threatened to undo him was when he'd reached into the closet for his shirt that morning, but even that he could push away, as if avoidance of any thought at all would absolve him of his guilt.

"Jack, what happened to your hand?" she asked, soft, unruffled even in her panic. She was sitting up now, stretching out the length of the bed towards the side table. He wouldn't let go of her, so that she couldn't roll out from underneath his arm, so that there was a little bit of a struggle to get the light on. But she did manage to turn it on, and she saw his bandaged hand. She was wide-awake now. "Oh, Jack," she breathed, taking a hold of his hand once again, incredibly gingerly. She examined it quickly – really just looked at it once over, then said matter-of-factly, "It's broken."

She looked to him, her green-brown eyes wide, and for a moment, all he could think of was that someone had suggested to him once that the colour he was searching for to describe her eyes were hazel. He'd wanted to hit him across the face. Because Clara's eyes weren't as simple as hazel, and he was offended that anyone would even dare suggest that. Everything about her was hard to describe. She was as close as you could ever get to magic. You just – you just struggled to describe her.

"It's just the two fingers that are broken, honey," he found himself saying, "and my wrist is sprained. But I'm fine, really."

She turned her eyes away. She was so worried him for him, he knew. "This is your good hand, isn't it?" And in that one question, he recognized all the thoughts running through her head: "This is your dominant hand, right? Can you even handle a pistol with the injury? Can you defend yourself if you can't wield a weapon?"

God, she worried so about him, undoubtedly brought on in such intensity because of her love for him – her _deep_ love for him.

Inexplicably, he wanted to snatch his hand away from her. Inexplicably, he was terrified that the feverish heat of his skin would sear him, brand him forever where she touched him, so gentle and loving and worried.

* * *

_He remembered thinking how gorgeous she was, framed by the doorway, the warm light of the hallway sconces drifting in from behind her, obscuring every detail of her, illuminating only the generic silhouette of her body. For a moment, all he could think was that she'd make a good painting – maybe something by Degas – dreamy and soft and faded, ungrounded in the harshness of reality._

_She smiled at him from the door, still unmoving, as if she was aware of the need to maintain the near dream sequence aspect of the whole situation. He could see clearly the curve of her lips, the upward tilt of them, and he recalled even more clearly how they'd felt against his. She'd smelt of honeysuckle and sweat, tangled in the sheets of the bed they'd shared. She was erotic. She was horribly intoxicating._

"_I suppose I should go," she said, keeping her voice low and husky, so that the sound of it blended with the visuals he was presented with. Nothing yet had shattered the stillness they were in, not even her movements as she left her frame and approached him. But perhaps she'd been deliberate with them, her movements. She'd been wonderfully slow._

_Then she was on the bed with him, draped lazily over the sheets, mindful even in the fluidity of her movements of his injured hand. He should not have felt the feverish warmth of her skin. But he had. And he'd felt the weight of her pressing into the mattress next to him, and he'd felt the silkiness of her bare calf against the tip of his foot as she slid onto the bed. He should like to kiss her again – and why not? Why shouldn't he kiss her again?_

_As if having read his thoughts, she bent down, her hair falling over them, concealing more and more of their illicit actions the closer she got to him until finally, he did kiss her, and she softened against him._

_Their kiss didn't last very long. It couldn't have been more than two seconds before he gently pushed her away. And it couldn't have been more than another two seconds after that than he was saying, "Don't be silly. It's four in the morning. I'll go." He'd started to climb out of the bed even before he'd finished talking._

_Moving lightly in the almost darkness of the room, aided only by the dim yellow-orange glow of light still streaming in through a door that hadn't been properly pulled shut, he tried not to think about how easy it was proving for him to gather up his clothes and make little to no sound at all; when he failed and it did occur to him, though, he quickly pushed the thought away. From directly behind him, he could hear the telltale rustling of the sheets that denoted her moving. "You know," she started, and he couldn't help the small smile that crept up to him nor the hunger that started once more in the pit of his stomach (though it was not the kind for food). She was almost purring, even with only having spoken those two words. "This doesn't have to end here. I could get my driver to take us to your hotel and we could pick up right where we left off."_

_He chuckled, pulling his boxers on first, then his pants, but leaving them unbuttoned so that he could tuck his shirt in. Then he turned to face her and he drank in all her glorious nakedness. The same warm light that was helping him see was much less practical as it splayed out against the expanse of her skin. It laid on her like a decorative golden blanket, only just kissing her body. Clearly she was unabashed by her nudity._

_She rolled onto her back on the bed and stretched so that her back was arched and her bare breasts became more prominent. He finished buttoning up his shirt and proceeded to tuck it into his pants before buttoning that up as well, and then he went over to her, lifting one leg onto the bed, bent at the knee, bracing himself against it to have better stability as he bowed his head to press a kiss to her shoulder. "We shouldn't," he said softly, his words only barely muffled against her skin._

_One of her hands went up to his hair, her fingers entwined in them. "You're right," she sighed. "If I went over to your hotel, it would just ruin everything. Better to let everything stay here, and then the magic will never go away. It'll be contained in this room and it will never go away."_

_He smiled and pulled away, and she relinquished her hold on him. He went to pick up his jacket from where it lay on the arm of the sofa, but then noticed the sparkle of the jewels on her dress, pooled on the blackness of the unlit floor. He reached down to pick it up, then folded it in half vertically, smoothing it out as best he could. He turned to look at her for a moment and found her smiling. "Don't want that creasing," he quipped. Walking out of a hotel in the same clothes you'd walked in the night before was one thing, but minds would certainly be running wilder if it were creased to boot. He could tell she wanted to laugh._

_He picked up his jacket and deposited the dress in the empty space it left._

"_Jack?"_

_He looked up, once more turning to her. The look of her makeup, which was no longer vivid and sharp and bright, having been slept in and kissed away, only served to further encapsulate her beauty. Forever after, if he ever thought of her again outside of the context of his guilt, this is how he would remember her – not dazzling at the fundraiser, but this quiet beauty that now permeated the room, propped up on one elbow, her short blonde hair flowing in loose waves but not yet completely messed up, and her faded lipstick._

"_I won't ever see you again, will I?" she said. There was no bitterness in her voice, no sadness, and no real questioning even. She'd asked a question she already knew the answer to, and somehow he'd expected as much from her._

_He shook his head slowly, smiled. "I don't think so."_

_She smiled back._

* * *

He buried his face into the crook where her neck met her shoulder. The smell of her – _roses _– and the_ feel_ of her could drown out everything, he knew. And so he laid kiss after kiss on her skin, listened contentedly as she sighed, happy in her own contentment. She knew he loved her. She had to know, in the way he so reverently worshipped her, as if she were his very own Madonna and he in rapture.

"I love you, Clara Thompson," he whispered quietly, pressing another kiss into her skin. Because he _had_ to remind himself that she was his wife, and he had to remind himself of all the emotion that that had entailed, asking her to marry him. He'd clung on to her, during the war and after. The thought of her, the memory of her, the idea of her – they'd all served to keep him alive. She was his everything.

"I love you," he said again, feeling acutely the fabric of the bandage against his skin and the pronounced throbbing of his injured hand, all of which were the only evidence he hadn't been able to wash away in the shower, and they screamed his guilt.

And then he heard the sigh again, and he knew that she smiled. She said she loved him too. She was tired. She was happy.

That would absolve him.

He loved her.


End file.
